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TERR I TORI AT, POLICY. 



SPEECH 

OF 

HON. GEORGE E. PUGII, OF OHIO, 

IN 

REPLY TO MESSRS. IVERSON AND GREEN, 

IN 

THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



5T 



oflg — o -4 • <^X> » ^~ * 



WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1860. 

The Senate proceeded to consider the resolution submitted by Mr. PtroH on 
the 15th ultimo : 

fiesolved, That the Committee on Territories be instructed to inquire into the expediency 
of repealing so much of the acts, approved September 9, 1850, for the organization of Ter- 
ritorial governments in New Mexico and Utah, as requires that all the laws passed by the 
Legislatures of those Territories shall be submitted to Congress for approval or rejection. 

Which Mr. Harlan, of Iowa, moved to amend by the addition of a clause authorizing 
the people of those Territories to elect all their Territorial officers. Messrs. In eesos an 1 
Gseen having addressed the Senate, in answer to his speech of December 19th, Mr. PUGII 
said: 

Mr. President: There is nothing I dislike so much as a prolonged contro- 
versy, and especially when I am one of the parties to it. The Senator from 
Georgia (Mr. Iverson) was not strictly entitled, by the usage of debate, to 
reply to me ; nevertheless, if lie alone had spoken, I should have called for a 
vote upon my resolution. But the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Green) whilsl 
professing to be a friend of peace in the Democratic party, whilst deprecatii 2 
this very discussion, has not only engaged in it at greater length than any other 
Senator has done, and brought into it a variety of topics to which no one else 
alluded, but has openly accused the Senator from Illinois (Mr, Douglas) and 
myself with attempting to produce a disturbance in the ranks of the Democratic 
party, by the agitation of {his question, and thereby ministering to the success 
of our political opponents. Now, sir, as 1 must respond to that accusation, and 
respond to it decisively, I may be permitted, in the first place, to say two or 
three things for the benefit of the Senator from Georgia. I quoted from I lis 
speech of July 26, 1848, to show that he then preferred the doctrine of squatfc r 
sovereignty, in its broadest sense, to any intervention whatsoever by the Federal 
Government in the Territories. 

Mr. Toombs. Is the Senator alluding to me? 

Mr. Pug it. No, sir; to your colleague. Here is what that Senator said. 
Let us see if I misrepresented him. In his speech of July 20, 1848, he said : 

"It is admitted, however, by all parties, that there is a point of time at which this 
question of slavery or no slavery may be. and must be, decided by the people of the Ter- 
ritories. When they meet in convention, in the exercise of sovereign authority, to form a 
constitution preparatory to admission into this Union as a State, then they may regulate 
this question of slavery at pleasure. The only difference of opinion upon the point la, 
Whether the people may or may not, under the Constitution, exercise this power 1 \ 
torial legislation prior to the formation of a State constitution. Sir, without discussing or 
deciding the question, I do not consider it a matter of essential importance to the South 
at what time this power may be exercised by the people of the Territories. It is, in my 
opinion, of infinitely more importance, both to the South and to the Union, that the power 
be left to the Territories, instead of the Federal Government." 

Printed by Lemuel Towers. 



I think tlic quotation is ample to the point for which I cited it. But the 

or seems to have since undergone a change of opinion, and, consequently, 

now to be in a position confidently, authoritatively, and without appeal, to 

ance as Abolitionists all those who have not undergone a similar change. 

The question is, what induced this change of opinion on the part of the Sena- 

t t : We ha\c the advantage of his own words, lie said, on Monday last : 

"But, sir, the history of emigration into the Territories, for the last ten or twelve years, 

has taughl the southern people a severe and salutary lesson. It has opened their eyes to 

th h evitable effects and fatal results of the 'squatter-sovereignty' doctrine of General 

Casa and ids northern friends. The settlement and fate of California satisfied me and the 

whole South, that under that doctrine, as the established policy of the Government the 

E -it ii. in people, with their slave property, would be as effectually excluded from all the 

public Territories as they could possibly be by the Wilmot proviso. The emigration to 

California was under the general impression and understanding that Congress would not 

interfere to change the local Mexican law which prohibited slavery, but would leave the 

to establish and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. Congress 

act, refused and neglected to establish any territorial government, but left the people' 

armed into that country from the great northern free-soil hive, to set up a govern' 

• q1 of their own, and admitted her into the Union with an anti-slaver}? constitution." 
Well, sir, the ease of California, as the Senator has narrated it, arose on the 

formation of a State constitution; and, certainly, the Senator does not pretend 
that the Congress of the United States or the Federal Government can control 
the action of a State upon the subject of slavery when she comes to, form her 
own constitution. The case had no pertinency to the question what power a 
Territorial Legislature may or may not exercise. I was prepared, after that, for 
another statement of the Senator, which I will read : 

'"I was, in 1850, one of the most decided opponents of the admission of California into 
I lion. I opposed the whole hatch of the compromise measures of that memorable 
period. I opposed them because they recognized the doctrine of 'squatter sovereignty,' 
and were founded upon and connected with the admission of California into the Union 
with a free-State constitution. Sir, when the southern people, upon a more mature inves- 
tigation of the doctrinejiu question, and a knowledge of its practical workings in the 
case of California, came to understand its true character and bearing, and to comprehend, 
an 1 appreciate their just rights under the Constitution, and as equals in the Confederacy, 

• ;. universally repudiated and condemned it." 

And so, it seems, the Senator from Georgia was outside the limits of the 
Democratic party at that time. The Democratic convention at Baltimore, in 
May, 1852, laid it down, as an article of faith, that every Democrat approved 
. ' n. compromise measures. The Senator himself was among the oppo- 
i >nts of our Democratic faith, and yet he now assumes to be an expositor of 
D.em mndness ! 

Mr. Dvebson. Will the Senator allow me to correct him? 
Mr.PuGH. Certainly. 

Mr. Eversok'. I opposed the compromise measures in 1850; but in Decem- 
ber of that \ ar, a convention was held in the State of Georgia to decide what 
□ thai Stale should take upon them. The convention decided to acquiesce 
in them, and I n 'ijniese.ed in th ■ determination of the convention, and therefore 
in the i democratic party. 
Mr. I'll.;,. Everybody acquiesced. The Senator could not help himself. 
tion is, whether he stood on the Democratic platform in 1852? I have- 
shown that lie did not, by his own confession, and yet lie sets himself up to 
lecture other gentlemen as to the soundness of their faith. More than that, 
nator was nol even in unison with the Democratic party of Georgia, nor; 
b.e people ol G orgia at lh«t lime. 1 read, the other day, certain resolu-: 
tions of the Legislature of Georgia — the same Legislature by which the Sena- 
tor was ehosen to tfliia body— and the preamble of those resolutions is anmis- 

rnis : 

"The convention, having firmly fixed herself upon the 

; rinciples of the compromise measures oi 1850, relating to the Bubjeet of slavery in the 

Territories of the United States, as a final settlement of the agitation of that question, its 

the Halle of Co and the political arena, and its reference to the 

I e 'pic of fchel >rritt»ri I fcl . E>$hW£j5Wp* l/ '" 8 in those compro- 



3 

mise measures the doctrine that it is not competent for Congress t<> impose any restriction 
as to the existence of slavery among them, upon the citizens moving into and settling 
upon the territories of the Union, acquired or to be hereafter acquired, but I bat the ques- 
tion whether slavery shall or shall not form a part of their domestic institutions, 

them alone to determine for themselves." 

That was what the State of Georgia had "firmly fixed herself upon" in 

solemn convention — a form of expression so extraordinary that I wondi t tl 
Senator had not his attention drawn to it. I say, by his own confession, he 
was not only outside the limits of the Democratic part}-, and off the Demo- 
cratic platform, but he stood in open array against the voice of his own peopli 
in solemn convention represented. 

Mr. Iverson. The Senator is greatly mistaken about the interpretation or 
the intention of the Democratic party of Georgia in passing that resoluti* n 
Neither the Democratic party of Georgia, nor any other party in the southern 
States, have ever admitted, and they did not intend to express the opinion by 
that language, that the people of a Territory, in their territorial capacity, have 
any power over the subject of slavery. Their object was to express the opinion, 
and so it was universally understood, that they had the power at the time they 
came to form a State constitution to decide it, but at no other time. That - 
the language of the resolution of the Legislature of the State of Georgia. 

Mr. Pitch. I have read the language. 

Mr. Iverson. You put your interpretation on it ; we put ours. 

Mr. Pugh. It speaks for itself; and I tell the Senator that no Script', 
of any private interpretation. What Georgia meant, and what the whole 
Democratic party meant at that time, I shall by-and-by have occasion to in- 
quire. What I wish to say now is, that the gentleman who undertakes to ar- 
raign one hundred and seventy-two thousand Democratic voters in the State of 
Ohio, and to pronounce upon their soundness, has not merely had occasion to 
recant his own opinions within the last ten years, but has been, for the gi 
portion of those ten years, opposed to the party of which he now professes I 
be an eminent apostle. 

What other experience of territorial government induced the honorable Sen- 
ator from Georgia to change his opinions? Where are all these outrages upon 
the institution of slavery or the rights of slaveholders I Are the}' in New Mex- 
ico? Has she not, by her Territorial Legislature, enacted a stringent code for 
the establishment of slavery, and for the protection of the title in and poss< 
of slaves? Are they in Utah? There have been abuses enough in Utah, b I 
none have been committed on property in slaves. Has she not, on her statute 
book, an act of her own Legislature recognizing and protecting property in 
slaves brought within her limits? Slavery was excluded from Minnesota, Ore- 
gon, and Washington, but never by the act of their own people; it was 
eluded by the Congress of the United States. Are these outrages in Nebraska ! 
"When has she ever enacted a law to abolish slavery or exclude it, or to attack. 
in any wise, the title of a master to his slave ? 

It is to Kansas, however, the Senator chiefly directed his attention. "\\ hat 
outrage has Kansas committed on the South? Did not her first Legislature 
adopt a code of laws protecting and cherishing and fortifying slavery '. '1 be 
provisions of that code were as stringent as the laws of any State in the I nion, 
and many of them were so repugnant to justice and common sense that tie- 
Senate of the United States, by an almost unanimous vote, interposed tl 
thority of the Federal Government to stay the violence of Territorial enactments. 
Those statutes are yet in force, with the exception of two or three sections re- 
pealed by the same Legislature which enacted them. It has not been for lack 
of legislation, it has not been for lack of statutory protection, that the South 
lias not carried slaves into Kansas, into New Mexico, and into every other 1 1 r- 
ritory of the United States. It has been from the lack of slaves. The South 
had not slaves enough; and the labor of those she had, in the States, was too 
valuable to admit of their translation to the Territories. Aud inasmuch as we 



4 

have not been able to furnish the South more slaves, whereby she could popu- 
late new Territories, the Senatoi calls upon us, by some hocus-pocus of Con- 
gressional enactment, to create additional slaveholding States. Why, sir, in 
I il circumstances, it is quite as unreasonable as that old demand upon 
the Hebrews to make bricks without straw. Therefore, every pretextthat Ter- 
ritorial Legislatures, since the 20th of July, 1848, have attacked the institution 
of slavery, ot excluded it, is unfounded; and, if I may say so, without pers >nal 
disrespect to the Senator, preposterous. 

In fact, the Senator's idea of soundness seems to be that the North has only 
to wait upon the South as an obedient vassal; and whenever any candidate for 
office in a southern State, wishing to gratify local prejudices, or promote his 
own success, deigns to propound some new dogma with regard to slavery, more 
offensive to northern sentiment, if possible, than any one else ever proposed, 
that dogma is to become forthwith an incontrovertible article of Democratic 
faith. The Senator will not even tolerate us in doubting whether or no slave- 
ry • i he alleges, altogether a faultless institution. He says : 

"The southern people do not admit that slavery is a moral wrong, a social evil, or a 
political curse; on the contrary, they believe it is right in the sight of Heaven, salutary 
in its social bearing and effects, and conducive to the highest development of political 
blessings. They must, therefore, look upon all men who take the opposite ground, and 
who condemn slavery in the abstract, as the enemies of their peculiar institution, arid as 
committed, sooner or later, to its final destruction." 

Well, sir, without presuming to dictate to the people of Georgia, or to de- 
cide for them in regard to the social, moral, or political aspects of shivery, I 
must acknowledge, even at the risk of the Senator's high displeasure, that we 
have not been favored, in the State of Ohio, with any "authentic revelation of 
the Divine will commanding us to own slaves; and, although thus deprived of 
what the Senator esteems essential to our social and political prosperity, we 
have managed to exist after a fashion, and are somewhat acquainted with the 
arts of civilized life. And 1 must acknowledge, furthermore, if this be the 
true standard of Democratic soundness, as expressed in the paragraph I have 
just quoted, I am not only unsound myself, but all my constituents, of all,par- 
ties, are utterly, incurably, and hopelessly unsound. Therefore, now that we 
rstand the rule by which the Senator lias judged us, I do not wonder at 
his judgra< 

id thai the Senator from Missouri had charged the Senator from Illinois 
(Mi-. Douglas) and myself with being disturbers of Democratic unity, as well 
as teachers of new and false doctrine. I intend to answer these ac< nsations. 
It is certain, Mr. President, that 1 was elected to the Senate of the United 
' ; i by the Democratic party; that I never belonged to any other party 1 ; 
that I have always adhered to its professions of principle, and supported its 
[ar nominations, [f I can show that previous to the ; February, 

1 . when the Senator from Missouri seems to think I lapsed from the true 
faith, before and since the Presidential election, in the hearing of Democratic 
I ; the same opinions, not once merely, but twice, and thrice, 

i • ill at] ■- myself to have been consistent. 

And now, -ir, what do I say? I say that, in my opinion, the people of an 
y, through their immediate representatives in the Territorial 
I ture, ecu prohibit the introduction of slaves by a prosp> ;tivi law; ad- 

mitting, al s, that the question is a judicial one, iu egaird to "which 

differ widely from me, and that whenever d theSu] ne Court 

United States, one way or another, it will be the du j f the Territorial 
authorities, as well a of* o , to obej thai I ersed. To 

rpe revision, :l sq of a letter which 1 ad I > one 

. constituents, on the tth of June last, and which wa published el the 
time ; 

"I ■■'■ much of the second resolution adopted by the Democratic convention of 

on th :'! i -i May, il the people of an organized Territory 



have theiSatOB power to exclude 01 . y as the people of n 

State have ; but this power n in the case ojE Territ to 

tations expressed in the federal C " titution: 

"1. That persons held to service or labor in the States, or other Territories, ' under 
the laws thereof,' cannot, by mere flight, secure to any advantage which 

had not in the place ■■■■ laence they 

"2. That the right to the service or labor of a slave, once recognized by the] 
Territory, cannot be divested or otherwise impaired, by a subsequent T< 
ture, without compensatjion. The a t of exclusion, th refoi-e, must be ; i 

" It is my opinion, furtb Congress has no constitutional authority <>• i 

fere with the 3 oi the Terril mbject of slav 

! have sp< cified. NevertheJ 

far an act of legislation, by a Territory or a Sta , contrav the I on 

United States; that results, inevitably, from the nature <>f ens l ent. 

"If the judiciary should be of my opinion, wheni e shall $ri 

the power of a Territorial Legislature over the subject of slavery, i should expect tl 
of different opinions to e ; and so, if Jibe judiciary should decide for th< 

would acquiesce iu that decision, until reversed, without any ref . 
opinions or sentiments. The man who elates he will observe only such law: 
cisions as please him, and not those which he disaj pro , thereby r< no in 
once and loyalty as a citizen. 

"If I had been consulted in regard to the resolution which you specify, 1 h mid 
made no other criticism than that its last sentence is open to some di -. 
hension. We may well enough act with those, in our own State and i - ; 
li eve that th people of a Territory. can only decide upon the question of slav< 
about to form a State government; but upon the express condition that (hey will i I 
no interference, through Congress, while the territorial organization exists. That ie 
real point of controversy; and that was determined by the Cincinnati platfor a, 
as by ' -Nebraska bill. Give us the doctrine of non-inti 

claimed, and popular sovereignty becomes, at, once, an establi ' I in 

"This, substantially, is what I said in the Senate on the 2.3d of February li ; 
there be anything which does not perfectly accord with this, in the platform of oui 
convention, I am altogether unconscious of the difference, and altogeth - 
difference was intended." 

On the 9th of July, 1856, I had a controversy with the Senator from 111] 
(Mr. Trumbull,) in regard to what was then called the " Kansas pacifica 
or Toombs bill. My speech on that occasion was circulated I \ bal 

as well as myself, during the Presidential campaign. 1 then said : 

"The question presented upon this subject, is whether the actual inhabitants of a 
tory shall decide the character of their' local institutions, or submit to the arbi 
decision of Congress in that regard. Popular sovereignty an L 

stand opposed to each other. The Senator maintains that it is tl. rress 

govern the Territories, in all respects, without reference to the wil 
I deny both the rightfulness and the expediency of such legislation." 

"The issue, therefore, is whether Congress or the people shall decide upon the in 
tions of a new State. There are some Senators, belonging to the Demo ■ 
stop at that point. I believe the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Benjamin) ■'. 
all events, the Senator front Mississippi (Mr. Brown) an L the 
Toombs) do. I do not. They hold that the Constitution of th< 
the people of the Territory from excluding slavei-v, by law, during the pi 
government. I do not so understand the Constitution. I agree with them, hew 
this: Ifthe Constitution has re-trained the people, as allege.!, 1, 
Whatever the Constitution provi will stand. 1 - : ' 

better law than the Constitutio • .news that I advocate I 

government of, our political relations. 

"This question beieg a mere question of construction, a question as to : 
ferred in the Federal Constitution, we have agreed that it shall be referred t>> the jt 
authorities for determination; and, both as a Senator and a citizen, I mean to i a 
by whatever the judicial authorities decid in that respect a.1 present,! 
until the decision. I will entertain and, i£ necessary, defend my own opinion. I "i di 
such restraint in the Constitution as Senators have alleged, I beli- 
ef the Kansas-Nebraska act, each Territorial legislature n dbit or admit sla. 
will — not as a permanent decision, to be sura, but' duvii 
otherwise lawfully provi,;-!."'—-.' ■ /'. ■ to 
Congress, first session, page 836. 

Previous to that, in the first speecli of any length which '. d< livered in the 
Senate, on the 26th of May, 1856, similar "language was employed, 1 
said : 



6 

& ■].:. -i ic and local affairs of a community — whether you calT it a 

:i Territory, or by what title soever — in opposition to, or 'disregard of, the wishes 

(•:" tti.- inhabitant--, restraining them from the advantages enjoyed by their fellow eitizene 

i'i other States or Territories, for 1 1 1 ■ - development of their material resources, the forms 

of labor wbieh an 1 to their s.->il, climate, and cfrcnmetances — sueh a regulation 

in my judgment, is a rmy gross abuse of power, wherever the power does exist, and a 

tyrannical assumption wherever it does not. And when we consider that the whole scope 

of a territorial government i- to preside for the future admission of the community over 

■which it exists into the Union, as a State, the proposition becomes toe clear for any dis- 

: those v,]j,. love to cavil upon trilling distinctions, or rather upon dis- 

na without any difference, thai whatever restriction cannot be imposed on the 

after admission, cannol be imposed at that time, and whatever cannot be imposed 

a- a requisite to admission, cannot, iu good faith, be imposed during the territorial form 

■ eminent" 

After the Presidential election, on the 10th of December, 185G, I had another 
controversy with the Senator from Illinois, (Mr. Trumbull,) in regard to the 
annual message of General Pierce ; and my language was this: 

"It ha been charged, in th arse of this discussion, that the Democratic party in the 

rn States avoided the real issue during the last presidential canvass. What was the 

sne? The Senator from Illinois (Mr. TaHMwexi) says it was, whether a Territorial 

has or has not the power to abolish slavery. 1 find no such issu« propounded 

in either the Rej or the Democratic platform." * * * * 

"the question to which the Senator from Illinois adverts did not enter into the issue; 

i of U '■■ of ■ What a Territorial Legislature can do, or cannot do, 

eel of slavery, is no question for us. If it, should exclude slavery, or tolerate slavery, 

whichever you please, the man who wishes to contest its power, oneway or another, can 

himself to the judicial tribunals, and have his case decided. The issue is not what 

gislature can do; the issue is what Congress can do — and that, in my 

opinion, is nothing at all. 

" If Congress will leave this whole question to the inhabitants of the several Territories, 

to he decided, m each ens.-, without its intervention, and when, and as the inhabitants 

may choose, or may be able to decide it, we shall have no farther occasion of controversy 

******** 

"I might < on the other hand, if it were worth while, as to the course of our 

We were charged, and are to this day, with desiring, and in fact designing, 

to extend the institution of slavery into Territories where it does not exist. The only 

: upon which this accusation could be founded, at all, is that we refuse to vote for 

any act of Congress to prevent its extension. Well, sir, we believe that Congress has no 

utional authority to pass an act of this description; and that, as it is for the in- 

i ich State, new and old, to exclude or admit slavery at discretion, Congress 

onghl not to usurp their rights and privileges as American citizens 'luring the territorial 

of Government." ******** 

••The Senator from Virginia (Mr. Mason) is entitled to his opinion as to the effect, of the 

:[ territorial organizations. I am not bound to agree with him in chat 

on, and 1 do not agree. But that quesl ion, as I have sail, never can come before us. 
Vi e !. a iskabill, disclaimed all jurisdiction on the part of Congress over the 

subject.'' 

i will pardon me'inother extract — fori know it is rather un- 

ful in ;i man to 'junto h',< own speeches — when I addressed the Senate, in 

inpton constitution, long after the Dred Scott ease — when 

I v. a- following the lead of the Senator from Missouri, and was thought to he a 

Democrat of the pui ■. al r, 1 announced the same doctrine. In that speech, 

deli. ith of March, 1858, I said: 

"Here was a body of men de facto the Legislature of the Territory of Kansas. They 
i ■•■ authorizii • be brought into Kansas. Here was an honest, citizen 

ot yot State of T< i of the State of Missouri, who did not 

know whether the Legislature had been rightfully chosen or not; he had not read this 
great Kansas booh of the lag) Congre a; he was i t the same state <■( blissful ignorance in 
which our Republican frienda say most of us are, to this day, including the President 
He ba rbioh were bis by the laws of Kentucky, Tennessee, or Missouri. The 

title " ■ ed by the lav.- of his own Slate. It was property, valid property, for 

wbieh he had paid ; and be read in the statutes of Kansas" — 

N"i in the < institution of the CTnited States, bul in the statutes of Kansas— 

he had a perfect liberty to take thai -lave into Kansas with him, and that he and 

■nid till the soil, and he went thither. Now, they 

come to ma tution; and d riously pretend that the cause of human 



freedom or the causa of honesty, as between man and man, requires that one who has 

acted in good faith, against whom no imputation of being con ted with any usurpation 

or outrage can be made, shall l>e punished by the loss of that which was de dan '1 to I* i 
property by the laws of Kansas, as well as by tin- laws of the State whence he emigi 
That would be the confiscation of private property." 

It is very singular thai I hare been allowed by the good shepherd of the 

Democratic party from Missouri, and his assistants on litis occasion, to be fcn 
as a member of the party for tin: last four years, and that at no time, 
within twelve mouths, have they supposed the announcement of such opin 
to be contrary to the established faith. 1 was an unexceptionable Dem< 
until after Mr. Buchanan's election ; that is certain. 

The Senator has chosen to speak with regard to the Cincinnati plat: 
He read one resolution, and but one. 1 shall read that resolution also, and 
then read what the Senator omitted. Here is what he read : 

** Resolved, That we recognize the right of the people of all the Territories, inch 
Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly-expressed will of a ma 
of actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a 
constitution with or without domestic slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon 
terms of perfect equality with the other States." 

I declare, sir, that was never questioned or doubted in the Democratic parly ; 
and it is expressed in language so plain that, if it be all, there was no neci 
for any other resolution. But what else did the Cincinnati platform say '. 

" Resolved, That claiming fellowship with, and desiring the cooperation of all who r 
gard the preservation of the Union under the Constitution as the paramount issue 
repudiating all sectional parties and platforms concerning domestic slavery, which - 
embroil the .States and incite to treason and armed resistance to law in the Territories," — 

We have come to the Territories at last — 

"and whose avowed purpose, if consummated, must end in civil war and disunion, the 
American Democracy recognize and adopt the principle contained in the organic laws 
establishing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska as embodying the only sound and 
safe solution of the slavery question, upon which the great national idea of the people of 
this whole country can repose in its determined conservatism of the Union — non-inter- 
ference by Congress with slavery in State and Territory, or in the District of Columbii 

That was the principle. The Cincinnati convention, like the Georgia con- 
vention, "firmly fixed" itself on that principle. That was the only sound and 
safe solution of the slavery question. It was upon that the people of this whole 
country, North and South, were to repose in determined conservatism of the 
Union. Shall I read it again ? 

"Non-interference by Congress with slavery in State and Territory, or in the District 
of Columbia." 

Yet further : 

"That this was the basis of the compromises of 1850, confirmed by both the 1 
cratic and Whig parties in national convention ; ratified by the people in the election of 
1652.; and rightly applied to the organization" — 

Gentlemen, I pronounce it distinctly — 

"to tue organization of Territories in 1S54." 

Not to the admission of new States, but to the organization of Terra 
That is not all; 

"That by the uniform application of this Democratic principle to the organizatu i oj 
Territories, and to the admission of new States, with or without domestic slavery, as they 
may elect, the equal rights of the States will be preserved intact, the original con 
of the Constitution maintained inviolate, and the perpetuation and expansion of the l'i ion 
insured to its utmost capacity of embracing, in peace and harmony, evevy future State 
that may be constituted or annexed with a republican form of government.' 

1 commend the Senator from Missouri to a perusal the whole Cincinnati plat- 
form. It refers, by name, to the Kansas-Nebraska bill. It docs not refer to 
the Oregon bill, from which the Senator quoted, and far less to the old 
nance of 1787, which drove the people of Ohio and of Indiana t<> the vet 
rebellion. The Democratic party never selected those Territorial act--, and .set 



8 

them forth in its platform as commanding approbation ; but now, instead of 
confining himself to the Kansas-Nebraska pill, which was thus presented as the 

model of Democratic principles, the Senator from Missouri entertains us with 
long discourse in regard to the ordinan.ee of 1*787 and the Oregon bill. What 
is the purport of the Kansas-Nebraska bill? Its first section covers the whole 
ground of the admission of Kansas and Nebraska into the Union. That was 
all the bill contained, on the subject of slavery, when first introduced. After 
prescribing the boundaries of Nebraska, it declares: 

"And when admitted as u State or States, said Territory, or anj r portion of the same, 
Bhall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution ma} 1 pre- 
scribe at the time of their admission." 

That was the entire effect of the original Nebraska bill; but it underwent 
long discussion, and various amendments. After it had been debated in the 
Senate, for a month, another clause was added, and in a subsequent section. 
Why this amendment? To secure the right of admission as a slaveholding 
State? That had been secured by the first section. To express the opinion 
of the Senate on that question!? It was already expressed. Something else 
remained to be done. What else was it? The fourteenth section will show : 
and, in order to have the full benefit of that clause, 1 trust Senators will pay 
attention to the place where it is found : 

"Sec. 14. And be it further enacted, That a Delegate to the Ilonse of Representatives 
of the United States, to serve for a term of two years, who shall be a citizen of the United 
States, may he elected by the voters qualified to elect members of the Legislative Assem- 
bly, who shall be entitled to the same right? and privileges as are exercised and enjoyed 
by the Delegates from the several other Territories of the United States to the said House 
of Representatives; but the Delegate first elected shall hold his seat only during the 
term of the Congress to which he shall be elected. The first election shall be held at 
such time and places, and be conducted in such manner, as the Governor shall appoint 
and direct; and at all subsequent elections, the times, places, and manner of holding the 
elections shall be prescribed by law. The person having the greatest number of votes 
shad be declared by the. Governor to be duly elected; and a certificate thereof shall be 
given him accordingly." 

I presume nobody will dispute that this applies exclusively during the terri- 
torial form of government, and to a matter peculiarly territorial — the election 
of a Delegate in Congress, an office which could not exist after the admission 
of Nebraska as a State; and yet, in the same section, without even the sepa- 
ration of a paragraph, the act proceeds : 

"That the Constitution and all laws of the United States, which are not locally inap- 
plicable, shall have the same force an.] effect within the said Territory of Nebraska as 
elsewhere within the United States, except the eighth section of the act preparatory to 
the admission oi Missouri into the Union, approved March 6, 18'20; which, being incon- 
sistent with the principle of non intervention by Congress with slavery in the Stat a and 
Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, commonly called the compromise 
measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning 
of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it there- 
from, but to leave tli,. people there.r perfectly free to form and regulal ■ their domestic 
, i ions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the Qnil d States: Pro- 
vid ■', Thai nothing herein contained shall be construed to revive or put in force any law 
or regulation which may have existed prior to the act of 6th March. 1820, either pro- 
tecting, i stablishing, prohibiting, or abolishing slavery." 

Now, .Mr. President, was that language meant to apply to the admission of 
Nebraska into the Union as a State? If so, it was utterly superfluous; for 
all that had been settled in a previous section. The act of March 6,1820, 
had no operation beyond the period of territorial government; and when you 
n i saled that, and substituted a new doctrine, yon referred to the territorial 

govi r: nt, or von meant nothing at all. Consequently, to pretend that the 

idea of the Democratic party in 1854, or in 1S5G, was only to declare that the 
people of a Territory could decide upon the admission or exclusion of slavery, 
they came to establish a Stale constitution, is to convict Democratic 
Senators and Democratic Representatives in Congress of having brought this 
Union to the brink of ruin for an empty form of words. If that be what you 



9 

intended, your Kansas-Nebraska bill is a miserable cheat, and your I 
platform a delusion and a snare. 

The Senator from Missouri sayathat the Kansas-Nebraska bill pi toooi 

fer on the Territorial Legislatures all their powers of legislation. Nothing of the 
sort. The bill recognizes those powers ; acknowledges them ; them. 

It docs not confer them, llcrc is the language : 

"That the legislative power of the Territory shall extend to all rightful buI ' 
islatiou consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the pi f this 

act; but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil, I 
shall be imposed upon the property of the United Slates, nor .-hail tl 01 other pr< • 

perty of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other prbperty of I 

On the contrary, while Congress here acknowledges a legislative power, 
rived from the people of the Territory, it insists on three particular condil 
Ah! says the Senator from Missouri, the fact of such conditions being imp 
by Congress, on the right of the Territory to levy taxes, is an utt r denial i 
sovereignty and all independent power of legislation. If so, we are in a I 
ble dilemma, and the Senator is surely responsible. Nobody denies thai the 
States of this Union are sovereign ; that sovereignty, at least, has not been 
ingulfed into the great Federal abyss; and yet the Senator from Missouri 
proposed a bill, for which he voted, and for which, Democratic Set 
all voted, except my friend from Illinois, (Mr. Douglas,) containing the very 
same conditions which the Senator from Missouri now declares to : 
tent with sovereignty or an independent p >wer of legislation. 1 . 
read from the famous conference bill in regard to Kansas — T could refertomany 
other bil's, but I prefer the Senator's own example. By the "act for th< 
mission of the State of Kansas into tlie Union," approved May l, 1858, we 
submitted to the people of Kansas whether they should or should not beci 
State; and let us see what prohibitions we imposed on the sovereign pow< I i 
the State, after admission, with regard to the levying of taxes. Tl i . 

"The foregoing propositions, herein offered, are on the condition thai sal 
Kansas shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the lands of the I idled I 
or with any regulations which Congress may find necessary for securing the title 
soil to bona fide purchasers thereof; and that no tax shall be imposed on land 
to the United States; and that in no case shall non-resident proprietors be taxed higbi . 
than residents. Sixth. And that said State shall never tax. the lands or property of the 
United States in that State." 

Now, sir, if there be anything in the argument of the Senator from Mist 
as applied to the Territories, I say that it applies to the new State.-, in equal 
degree, by his own demonstration. If the mere stipulation oC certain cood 
as to the exercise of the right of taxation, in the Kansas-Nebraska act, i 
any argument that the Territorial legislature derives its powers of legislation 
from Congress, the very same stipulation in the act for the admission of Ill- 
State of Kansas into the Union, approved May 4, 1858, must have the 
extensive interpretation. And therefore, according to the argument o 
Senator from Missouri, the Legislature of every D< w State deriv* - i - pow< c • 
legislation from Congress, and is only the agent of Gongn 

[Mr. Pugh yielded, at this point, to a motion that the Senate proceed to th 
tion of executive business.] 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 1860. 

The President pro tempore. The resolution of the S 
being the unfinished business of yesterday, is the first business in order. 

Mr. Pugh. I am aware, Mr. President, that in resuming the floqr to-day, I 
trespass on the patience of the Senate to an extraordinary degree ; but with the 

'st- 
be 

defines the legislative power of the Territory, in order to show that 



10 

did not assume to confer that power, but merely acknowledged its existence. 
1 mentioned, also, that the Cincinnati platform had recognized no other terri- 
torial acl as a m >ld or example; thai it did not eulogize the Oregon bill, nor 
the Washington bill, as an application of Democratic principles to territorial 
government. 

There is one distinction between the Kansas-Nebraska act and all other acts 
of legislation for the Territories, to which the Senator from Missouri did not 
a his attention. I acknowledge that, commencing with the ordinance of 
Jnly 13, 1787, Congress had always reserved, in express terms, aright to mod- 
ify the enactments of the Territorial Legislatures. It was provided, in the or- 
dinance, that no act of the Territorial Legislature should be of any force until ap- 
proved by Congress; and that provision was copied into all our territorial 
is until, I think, the case of Wisconsin, April 20th, 1836. Then it was 
.-. » modified that the Territorial acts were valid unless disapproved by Congress, 
and such was the provision of the original Kansas-Nebraska bill. It remained 
there until after the discussion of the power of Congress over slavery in the 
Territories had been concluded ; and then, upon motion of Colonel Weller, of 
California, it was stricken out as inconsistent with the principles and frame of 

the bill. The Senator from California dissents 

Mr. Gwikt. I will give the Senator my colleague's reasons at the time. 
They are entirely different from those which are given now. 

Mr. Pugii. I have not the Globe at hand; but my recollection is (and if I 
am in error, I wish to be corrected) that Colonel Weller declared he would not 
vote for the bill unless that provision were stricken out; that to retain a power 
of supervision by Congress, over the legislation of the Territories, was altogether 
inconsistent with the fourteenth section of the bill, and the doctrine of non-in- 
ektion professed by that section. Here, then, is a difference between the 
}'_■ bsas-Nebraska bill and all former bills; and this affords a reason why the 
Cincinnati platform should adopt that bill as an example, in preference to all 
former bills. Why was the clause requiring all acts of the Territorial Legisla- 
tures to be submitted to Congress, for approval or rejection, stricken out of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill ? If Congress intended to claim any such power in future, 
as the Senator from Missouri claims to-day, why renounce it in so plain and 
aivocal a manner? For no purpose, as I think every candid man will ad- 
mit, except to declare that henceforth Congress would never interfere with the 
subject of slavery in the Territories one way or another. Therefore, when we 
come to interpret the Kansas-Nebraska bill, or the Cincinnati platform, this 
of recurring to territorial governments under any other act, of prior date, 
is a confession of defeat. 

There was another element in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Under the terri- 
torial laws, as they existed before, no controversy could be appealed from the 
supreme court of a Territory to the Supreme Court of the Tinted States, un- 
less the subje it-matter was of the value of $2,000 exclusive of costs; but, in 
consequence of the discussions which arose upon the fourteenth section of the 
bill, the Senate so altered that provision as to give a right, of appeal from the 
me court of the Territory to the Supreme Court of the United States in 
cause involving a claim of servitude, or a claim of freedom, without the 
regard to tie- amount in controversy. Ami wherefore? To facilitate the 
of this verj question at issue between the Senator from Missouri and 
If; and in order that the Supreme Court of the United Stales, upon a 
writ of error to the supreme court of Kansas or Nebraska, might decide the 
tion, whenever it arose, whether or no a Territorial Legislature had the 
power to exclude slavery, or discourage it, or otherwise regulate it.^ 1 say, 
ao-ain, whenever such a decision is made, whatever my individual opinion, it 
be IT- duty of tin- Territorial Legislatures, and of Congress, to obey tin; 
decision until reversed. Has any such decision been made? Certainly not in 
rdance with the method suggested in that bill. There has been no writ ot 
error from the Supreme Court of the United States to the supreme court of 



11 

Nebraska, or the supreme court of Kansas, or the supreme court of any othi c 

Territory. Therefore, if the question lias been decided at, Jill, it lias been de- 
cided in some other manner than the Kansas-Nebraska bill contemplated 

The Senator from Missouri says that it was decided in tin- case of Died 
Scott. If so, the controversy is at an end ; nut those who claim the hen. it 
such a decision ought to be prepared with authority to establish it, and au- 
thority does not consist in assertion. To be sure, the Presi lent of the United 
States seems to imagine that a frequent repetition of the same assertion will 
finally compel its acceptance as truth ; and, consequently, in his last mes 
has addressed us in these words: 

"I cordially congratulate you upon the find settlement, by the Supreme Court <■ 
United Stat*?, of the question of slavery in the Territories, which had presented ai 
peet so truly formidable at the commencement of my administration. The right has 
been established of every citizen to take his property of any kind, iiiehnlin^ slaves, mtu 
the common Territories belonging equally to all the States of the Confederacy, and to have 
it protected there under the Federal Constitution. Neither Congress nor a Territorial Le- 
gislature, nor any human power, has any authority to annul or impair tl.i- rested I 

The 1 'resident must have a curious dictionary at the White House, or he 
would never have used the phrase "vested right" in that connection. It 
be a right, but it certainly is not a vetted right. 

"The supreme judicial tribunal of the country, which is a coordinate branch of the 
Government, has sanctioned and affirmed these principleswf constitutional law, S" i 
festly just in themselv-es, and so well calculated to promote peace and harmony:, 
the States." 

Such a style of assertion may convince placemen, may convince mere parti- 
sans, may convince personal admirers; but I can assure the President that it 
never will convince the intellect of this country. In order that we may under- 
stand, clearly, what was decided in the Dred Scott case, I trust the Senate \\ ill 
pardon me for an abstract which I have prepared. 

The case of Dred Scott was decided by the Supreme Court of the United 
States in March, 1857, after two elaborate arguments at the bar. It was upon 
a writ of error prosecuted by Dred Scott, plaintiff below, to revels.' a judg- 
ment for the defendant (Sandford) in the Circuit Court of the United Stat'- s 
for the district of Missouri. 

The action was in trespass for assaulting the person of the plaintiff, Dred 
Scott, and the persons of his wife and two minor children. The defendant 
pleaded to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, that the plaintiff was not a 
citizen of the State of Missouri, as alleged in the declaration, but a negro of 
African descent, whose ancestors were of pure African blood, and had 
brought into the United States and sold as slaves. The plaintiff demnm 
this plea (generally) as insufficient in law ; and the Circuit Court sustained the 
demurrer, overruling the plea, and requiring the defendant to answer to the 
merits of the action. 

The defendant then pleaded in bar : first, that he was not guilty of the tres- 
passes alleged ; second, that the plaintiff was his slave, and therefore lawfully 
subject to his restraint; third, that the wife and children of the plaintiff were 
likewise his (the defendant's) slaves, and liable to the same restraint. 

The plaintiff joined issue as to the first plea, and replied de injuria as to the 
others. 

The jury found all these issues for the defendant, and judgment was a. 
ingly rendered in his favor. From the bill of exceptions, containing all the 
testimony adduced upon the trial, the case appeared to be this: Dred Scott, 
negro, held to service and labor as a slave, in the State of Missouri, under the 
laws of that State, accompanied his master, (Dr. Emerson,) who was a surgi on 
in the Army of the United States, from Missouri to the military post at Rock 
Islam:!, in the S.ate of Illinois; and thence, after an interval of two years, to 
another military pest, Fort Snelling, in the territory purchast d of Frat.ee by the 
United States, north of 36° 30' north latitude. lie was there married to a 
female slave, Harriet, held in service by an officer of the Army; but from what 



12 

d to Fort Snelling, or in what circumstances, did 'not 
r. At or about the time of this marriage, however, the master of Dred 
Scot! er of Harriet, by regular purchase. One of the 

plaiul Irei , was born upon a steamboat on the Mississippi river, 

north of 36° 30' north latitude; ana the other, Lizzie, at Jefferson Barracks, in 
Mis .i. after Dred Scott, with his wife and eldest child, had ac- 
compani :d his master to the State of Missouri, and there again become subject 
to service and labor as a slave. 

The first qu stion pr< sented to the Supreme Court of the United S I , upon 
this record, was whether the plea to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court could 
be iv<. all. Judges McLean and Catron were of opinion that it could 

not; the Chief Justice, with Judges Wayne, Daniel, and Curtis, thought other- 
wise; Judges Crier and Campbell deemed the question ao immaterial one, in- 
! judgment must be pronounced upon the whole case; and. 
Nelson avoided the question entirely. 

I ought to remark, in this connection, that the nine judges of the Supreme 
Court delivered their opinions Separately in Dred Scott's case; so that, although 
the opinion of the Chief Justice is called "the opinion of the Court," in How- 
ard's Reports, it is such only to the extent of its coincidence with a majority 
of the other opinions delivered at the same time. 

I have felt myself constrained, after much reflection, to agree with Judges 
McLean and Catron, that t*he plea to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court was 
not properly before the Supreme Court for consideration — judgment having been 
given in favor of the plaintiff in error, as to that plea, in the court below, but 
final judgment in favor of the defendant! The error of the Circuit Court in 
that regard was favorable to Dred Scott; and yet, as the result proves, it was 
an error from which Sandford suffered no injury. But I agree with Judges 
obeli that, upon the whole case, including the pleas in bar, the 
testimony, and the verdict, the fiual order of the Supreme Court was correct. 
15ecausH 7 if Dred Scott, his wife, and his children were slaves, and not five per- 
sons, th • i Hrcuit Court of the United States had no jurisdiction of their contro- 
versy with Sandfordjand could not, under thc.Constitution of the United States, 
pronounce any conclusive judgment. 

The explanation of this lies in the fact that the courts of the United States 
are courts of limited jurisdiction ; limited by the Federal Constitution to con- 
troversies of a particular kind, or to controversies between particular persons. 
The action brought by Dred Scott against Sandford was not a controversy over 
which, independently of (he parties, the courts of the United States had any 
jui'isdiction ; but the jurisdiction of those courts, if any, depended on the citi- 
. nship of the two parties — upon the fact (alleged in the declaration) that the 
plaintiff was a citizen of the State of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of 
State of New York. 

Now, if Dred Scott was a slave, (as tic jury found by their verdict,:} he was 
not and could not he a citizen of the State of Missouri ; and it was the duty of 
: re. i it Court at once, upon ascertaining that fact, to dismiss the whole case 
for want of jurisdiction. The ride is universal in judicial proceedings that 
whenever, at any stttffe,th.e court discovers its own want of jurisdiction, the 
cause or matter < r c< ntrOversy must he dismissed ; and as to tin- courts of the 
United States —the authority of which is* limited by the Constitution in express 
>f the parties, plaintiff and defendant, can give jurisdiction. 

If an actual majority of the judges had decided, iii Dred Scott's Case, that 
the plea to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court was before the Supreme Court 
of t!n United States for consideration, I should have regretted any expression 
of opinion, by any of the judges, with respect to the other questions involved. 
That would have terminated the case; and, notwithstanding many examples to 
the court- of the States, and especially of late years, the Su- 
preme Court of the United States would have consulted its own dignity and 
by deciding only what was requisite to be decided. But the truth is — as 



13 

I have shown — there was no such majority; and the opiniQi I by 

Judges M&hewr Catron, Qrier, and Campbell, together with the neutral 
Judge Nelson, compelled the Chief Justice, as m II as Judges Wayne, Daniel, 
and Curtis, to examine the case upon its merits- There teas no majority for 

any other course. 

To be sure, throughout the northern and northwest rn States, the lead( 
a political party have seen tit to declare that the Supreme Courl first ■'.. 
against its own jurisdiction, and then proceeded to examine and decide upon 
the merits of the case ; hut this is a mere misrepresentation, and one which 
reflects, little credit upon the legal abilities of its inventors. The court was 
compelled to examine the whole case, upon the merits, before a majority of !)<<■ 
iudges could arrive at the conclusion that they had no jurisdiction to dt 
between the parties. 

I acknowledge that, in arriving at this conclusion, the judges examim d and 
decided several very intricate questions ; hut the decision of the court, 
all those questions, was not only appropriate and orderly, but indispensable. 

The questions were two in number : 

First, (as to Dred Scott himself,) whether his sojourn at Rock bland, i 
nois, coupled with his subsequent return to Missouri, in company with bis ma- 
ter, as the slave of his master, operated as an act of emancipation '. That was 
not a new nor even a doubtful question. It had been decided by the court of 
admiralty in Great Britain almost half a century before; by the highest tribu- 
nals in the kingdom of Prussia, and other continental sovereignties; by the 
courts of many of the States ; by the Supreme court of the United States itself, 
in December, 1850. Dred Scott could not, by reason of such sojourn, become 
a citizen of Missouri; nor even, after his return to Missouri, a five man. 

The second question, so far as it related to the sojourn of Dred Scott himself, 
at Fort Snelling, could have been, and was, decided upon the same considera- 
tions. But it did not appear in evidence from what State, or whether from any 
State, his wife (Harriet) had been taken to Fort Snelling; and it did appear 
that one of his children (Eliza) was horn upon a steamboat in the Missi 
river, north of 36° 30' north latitude, where slavery could not exist if the 
Congress approved March G, 1S20, had any force or effect 

Clearly, therefore, the Supreme Court of the United States could I I 
considering whether Congress had or had not authority, under the Consti; 
of the United States, to pass such an enactment. 

And now, having shown what questions the Supreme Court of the United 
States was compelled to decide, in order to arrive at a judgment between the 
parties, I will specify two facts which limited — and must necessarily have lim- 
ited — everything that was decided or even said : 

1. The plaintiff did not claim that his wife had been en I, or 
his daughter born free, in consequence of any enactment of a '/' 
Legislature. 

2. By the case stated in the bill of exceptions, Fort Snelling was, at that 
time, in an unorganized territory or domain of the United States, over which 
no territorial or other local or municipal authority prevailed. 1 am no: 
ciently advised whether the fact was so or not; but it was so stated in the bill 
of exceptions, and that is conclusive. 

The Supreme Court decided, and properly, that the Congress of the 
United States had no power, under the Constitution of the United 
prevent emigration from any State to the common unoccupied d r ter- 

ritory, belonging to the people of all the States; and no power to discriminate 
between rights of property, whether in slaves or in any other form, as defined 
and acknowledged by the laws of the several States. 

In answer to the argument of the plaintiff's counsel, that Congress had power 
to enact the statute of March 6, 1820, excluding slavery from all the public 
domain north of 36° 30' north latitude, because it had power to authorize the 
organization of territorial governments throughout the public domain, the court 



u 

was compelled to inquire by what clause of the Federal Constitution, if any, 
such governments could be authorized, and how far the right to authorize them 
conferred upon Congress a power of municipal legislation. 

The court decided, therefore, that the second clause of section third, article 
fourth, in the Constitution of the United States, authorizing Congress "to dis- 
pose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or 
other property belonging to the United States," did not confer any power of 
legislation over persons and rights of property within the " territory" so held, as 
i operty, subject to disposal and regulation. The Chief Justice (Taney) gave 
it as his opinion that the clause in question had no prospective operation," but 
referred only to the public domain ceded before the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution, and therefore embraced by the ordinance of the Continental Con- 
gress, July 1:5, 1787. 

The court decided, also, that the authority of Congress to provide for the 
organization of territorial governments was derived from the power to admit 
new States into the Union, and only as incidental thereto. Judges McLean, 
Curtis, and Catron dissented from this; Judge Nelson did not speak upon it. 

I have sufficiently argued, in my speech of December 19, whether the 
authority to admit new States into the Union (as conferred by the Constitution 
of the United States) includes, as an incidental power, the right to exclude or 
abolish, tolerate or maintain, the relation of master and slave. I need only in- 
quire, therefore, whether the Supreme Court (in Dred Scott's case) undertook 
to decide either one of the following propositions: 

First. That the Constitution of the United States has actually established 
the relation of master and slave as a form of property created by its own force 
and authority, and therefore existing where ever (in Territory or in State) the 
Constitution of the United States prevails. I discussed this fully in my speech 
of February 23, 1859, and need not repeat what I then said. Suffice it, not- 
withstanding the assertion of the President, in his late message, that the At- 
torney General has openly, totally, and unequivocally abandoned the doctrine. 

" The Constitution certainly does not establish slavery in the Territories, nor anywhere 
else. Nobody in this country ever thought or said so, but the Constitution regards as 
sacred and inviolable all the rights which a citizen may legally acquire in a State." 

I cannot say whether the President is " nobody" in Judge Black's estimation ; 
but it is evident that Judge Black, in his pamphlet, attributes the establishment 
- '' slavery as a form of property to the laws of the several States, and not to the 
Coii-titution of the United States. 

Second. That a Territorial Legislature is the mere agent of Congress, and 
therefore limited, in the exercise of its authority, to the powers conferred by 
Congress in the act of organization. 

I understand the Attorney General to maintain this proposition, and to rest 
h;s whole argument with the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglas) upon it. But 
T do not understand the Attorney General to allege that it was so decided in 
Dred Scott's case; and, in fact, no man of ordinary intelligence, who has read 
the case, will so pretend. 

( 'n tin' other hand, so far as the opinion of the Supreme Court can be as- 
certained from the case of Dred Scott, those judges who believe that a terri- 
torial Legislature is the agent of Congress (with one exception) believe, also, 
thai ( 'digress may abolish or prohibit Slavery in the Territories. The exception 
is Judge Catron; he agreed with .Judges McLean and Curtis as to the source of 
•ngressional power in the Territories, although not as to its extent. Vet the 
or from Missouri quotes the dissenting opinion of Judge Catron, as to that 
proposition, together with the dissenting opinions of Judges McLean and Curtis, 
t prove what the majority of the court deoided or intended. It is of a piece 
witli the pest of his argument. 

I will read to the Senate what was said by two of the judges who concurred 
in pronouncing the act of March 6, 1820, to be unconstitutional ; and if these 
citations do not, in effect, deny the doctrine that Congress can exercise muni- 



1.5 

cipal authority in the Territories, directly or through any agent, I am al a 
to comprehend the force of words. I will read first from the opinion o 

Chief Justice : 

"The power to expand the territory of the doited States, by the admission ol 
States, is plainly given; and in the construction of this power by all the departmi 
the Government, it has been held to authorize the acquisition of territory no1 fit fi 
mission at the time, but to be admitted as soon as its population and situation would entitle 
it to admission. It is acquired to become a State, and not to be held as a coloi 
governed by Congress with absolute authority; and as the propriety ol' admitting a 
{State is committed to the sound discretion of Congress, the power to acquire t> i ritorj for 
that purpose, to be held by the United States until it is. in a suitable condition to I 
a State upon an equal footing with the other States, must, rest upon the Bame disci 
It is a question for the political department of the Government, and not, the judicial 
whatever the political department of the Government shall recognize, as within the limit' 
of the United States, the judicial department is also bound to recognize, and t<> administ< r 
in it the laws of the United States, so far as they apply, and to maintain in the Territory 
the authority and rights of the Government, and also the personal lights and rigl 
property of individual citizens, as secured by the Constitution. AH we mean to - 
this point is, that, as there is no express regulation in the Constitution defining the 
which the General Government maj* exercise over the person or property of a citi 
a Territory thus acquired, the court must necessarily look to the provisions and pi iuciples 
of the Constitution, and its distribution of powers, for the rules and principles bj which 
its decision must be governed. 

"Taking this ruleto guide us, it may be safely assumed that citizens of the I 
States, who migrate to a Territory belonging to the people of the United Sta1 
be ruled as mere colonists dependent upon the will of the General Government 
to be governed by any laws it may think proper to impose. The principle upon which 
our governments rest, and upon which alone they continue to exist, is the uni 
States, sovereign and independent within their own limits in their internal and d< 
concerns, and bound together as one people by a General Government possessi 
enumerated and restricted powers, delegated to it by the people of the several Stati 
exercising supreme authority, withiu the scope of the powers granted to it, throuj 
the dominion of the United States. A power, therefore, in the General Gov inn 
obtain and hold colonies and dependent Territories, over which they might !• j 
without restriction, would be inconsistent with its own existence in its preset 

I now read from Judge Campbell : 

be recognition of a plenary power in Congress to dispose of the public do 
anize a Government over it, does not imply a corresponding authority to 
termine the internal polity, or to adjust the domestic relations of the persona wl o 
lawfully inhabit the Territory in which it is situated. A supreme power to make 
ful rules respecting the public domain, and a similar power of framing laws to 0] ■ I - 
persons and things within the territorial limits where it lies, are distinguish.. 1 b] 
lines of demarcation in American history. This court has assisted us to define them. Id 
Johnsou v. Mcintosh, (8 Wheat. 595—543,) they say: 'According to the theorj 
British constitution, all vacant lands are vested in the Crown; and the exclusive p" 
grant them is admitted to reside in the Crown, as a branch of the royal prerogative. All 
the lands we hold were originally granted by the Crown, and the establishment of a royal 
Government has never been considered as impairing its right to grant lands witl 
chartered limits of such colony.' 

"And the British Parliament did claim a supremacy of legislation coextensive wil 
absoluteness of the dominion of the sovereign over the crown lauds. The American d< 
trine, to the contrary, is embodied in two brief resolutions of the people of Pi 
in 1774: 1st. "That the inhabitants of these colonies are entitled to the same rights Bi 
liberties, within the colonies, that the subjects born in England are entitled wi hi 
realm.' 2d. 'That the power assumed by Parliament to bind the people of thew 
by statutes, in all cases whatever, is unconstitutional, and therefore the sou 
unhappy difficulties.' The Congress of 1771, in their statement of rights and 
affirm 'a free and exclusive power of legislation' in their several Provincial 
'in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, 
in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed.' (1 Jour. Conj 

"The unanimous consent of the people of the colonies, then, to all tl • , 
sovereign, 'to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting t, 
ritory' of the Crown, in 1774, was deemed by them as entirely consistent with oppoe I 
remonstrance, the renunciation of allegiance, and proclamation of civil war. in prefi 
to submission to his claim of supreme power in the territories." 

The Senator quoted, however, a sentence from Chief Justice Taney wh ch, 
taken by itself, would seem to warrant his assertion. Here is the sentence : 



" But th 
or to or 



16 

"And if Congress itself cannot do this — if it is beyond the powers conferred on fhft 
Federal Government — it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a ter- 
ritorial government to exercise them. It could confer no power on any local government, 
established by its authority, to violate the provisions of the Constitution." 

Nothing like this occurs in the opinion of any other judge, or anywhere else 
in the opinion of the Chief Justice himself. It is, when separated from its con- 
text, irreconcilable with what I have just read from another part of the same 
opinion, and wholly beside what the judge announced at the outset as the 
question to be decided. But when the sentence, is taken in its proper con- 
nection, and read as the Chief Justice delivered it, a harmony with the rest of 
his opinion will at once be discovered. The Chief Justice was speaking of quite 
another topic than that upon which the Senator from Missouri quoted it ; and, 
therefore, I propose to read his language in its true connection : 

"But the power of Congress over the person or property of a citizen can never be a 
mere discretionary power under our Constitution and form of Government. The powers 
of the Government and the rights and privileges of the citizen are regulated and plainly 
denned by the Constitution itself. And when the Territory becomes a part of the United 
States, the Federal Government enters into possession in the character impressed upon it 
by those who created it. It enters upon it with its powers over the citizen strictly defined 
and limited by the Constitution from which it derives its own existence, and by virtue of 
which alone it continues to exist and act as a government and sovereignty. It has no 
power of any kind beyond it ; and it cannot, when it enters a Territory of the United 
States, put off its character aud assume discretionary or despotic powers which the Con- 
stitution has denied to it. It cannot create for itself a new character separated from the 
citizens of the United States, and the duties it owes them under the provisions of the Con- 
stitution. The Territory being a part of the United States, the Government and the 
citizen both enter it under the authority of the Constitution, with their respective rights 
defined and marked out; and the Federal Government can exercise no power over his 
person or property beyond what that instrument confers, nor lawfully deny any right 
which it has reserved." 

That is the general proposition. 

"A reference to a few of the provisions of the Constitution will illustrate this propo- 
sition. 

"For example, no one, we presume, will contend that Cangress can make any law in a 
Territory respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging 
the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people of the Territory peacea- 
bly to assemble, and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances. 

" Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right 
to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal pro- 
ceeding. 

" These powers, and others in relation to rights of person, which it is not necessary 
here to enumerate, are, in express and positive terms, denied to the General Govern- 
ment ; and the rights of private property have been guarded with equal care. Thus the 
rights of property are united with the rights of person, and placed on the same ground 
by the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be de- 
prived of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law. And an act of Con- 
gress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely 
because be came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the Uni- 
t.d States, and who had committed no offence against the laws, could hardly be dignified 
witb the name of due process of law. 

"So, too, it will hardly be contended that Congress could by law quarter a soldier in 
a bouse in a Territory, without the consent of the owner, in time of peace; nor in time 
of war, hut in a manner prescribed by law. Nor could they by law forfeit the property 
of a citizen in a Territory, who was convicted of treason, lor a longer period than the 
life of the perBOn convicted; nor take private property for public use without just com- 
pensation." 

It will he observed that the Chief Justice has enumerated almost every pro- 
V'isioil of the bill of rights added to the Constitution of the United States. 
lie was speaking of those provisions — of the rights guarantied by the Consti- 
tution in the express terms of certain amendments added to it, by the States, 
after it.-, adoption. He has enumerated the several provisions. Let us sec bow 
i farther he proceeded : 

"The powere over person and property, of which we speak, are not granted to Con- 

, but are, in express terms, denied, and they are forbidden to exercise them. And 

this prohibition is not confined t>> the States; but the words are general, and extend to 



17 

the whole territory over which the Constitution gives it power to legi late, inoluding 
those portions of it remaining under territorial government, as well as that covered by 
States. It is a total absence of power, everywhere, within the dominion of the 1 nit<-.] 
States, and places the citizens of a Territory, so far as these rights are concerned, on the 
same footing with citizens of the States, and guards them as firmly and plainly against 
any inroads which the General Government might attempt, under the plea of implied or 
incidental powers." 

What next? 
"And if Congress itself cannot do this" — 

What? Pass a law respecting the establishment of religion, or the free ex- 
ercise of religious opinions^ or abridging freedom of speech or of the press, or 
destroying- trial by jury, within a Territory, or a law to quarter troops in a 
man's house in time of peace, or any other law to violate those express prohi- 
bitions of the Constitution contained in the I 'ill of rights. 

" And if Congress itself cannot do this — if it is beyond the powers conferred on the 
Federal Government — it will he admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a ter- 
ritorial government to exercise them." 

Mr. Green. Mr. President 

Mr. Pugh. In a moment ; I will read the rest of the quotation. 

" It could confer no power on any local government, established by its authority, to 
violate the provisions of the Constitution." 

Mr. Green. I only want to call the attention of the Senator from Ohio to 
this fact, that the court is there speaking of restrictions upon the power of 
Congress, the limitations placed upon its power; and showing- that Congress 
cannot confiscate property ; Congress cannot destroy rights of property; and 
then says — that is' the idea — much less can any subordinate tribunal established 
under the authority of Congress. 

Mr. Pugh. Well, sir, I have read the entire quotation. I venture to say 
that the idea which the Senator from Missouri inculcated, in his speech, neveT 
entered the head of the Chief Justice at all. He was illustrating a general 
proposition; and by what did he illustrate it? By quoting the bill of rights 
to the Constitution of the United States. In this bill of rights, to be sure, is 
a prohibition to Congress to confiscate property 

Mr. Davis. There is no bill of rights. 

Mr. Green. There is no bill of rights in the Constitution of the United 
States. There are certain amendments, but no bill of rights. 

Mr. Pugh. Well, those amendments contain the bill of rights. They were 
added as a bill of rights, and only from abundant caution. It was argued, by 
those who formed the Constitution, that a bill of rights was unnecessary, inas- 
much as Congress could do nothing except as distinctly authorized ; but the 
States, out of jealousy, insisted upon certain amendments. They were culled, 
by several of the States, a bill of rights; Virginia called them so. It was in 
reference to those amendments, at all events, that the Chief Justice spoke; and 
thus, language, used in illustration, as applicable to a particular case, is separa- 
ted from its context, and rendered inconsistent with the r<>t of the opinion de- 
livered by the Chief Justice, made to contravene the sentiments delivered by 
Judge Campbell, and, in fact, to overturn the whole decision. Need 1 add, sir, 
that the only counsel for the defendant (Sandford) now living, whose name, 
wherever mentioned throughout the United States, excites the admiration ol 
the legal profession — I mean Reverdy Johnson — has publicly declared that the 
right of a Territorial Legislature to exclude, establish, or regulate slavery^waa 
not argued by him, nor by his colleague, and that he never understood it to 
have been considered by the Court, and much less decided. 

So much for alleged errors of faith. The Senator from Missouri admits that 
the question between himself and me was an open question until the I >red Scott 
case. He admits that it was left open by the Kansas-Nebraska bill and by the 
Cincinnati platform. I have shown that it has not arisen in the form which 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill contemplated, and was not even involved in the Pie 1 



18 

Scott case; and, according to the rules of legal interpretation by which courts 
and lawyers are alike governed, a question which did not arise, and was not 
argued, cannot be said to have passed under consideration, and, far less, 
been decided. I know the Supreme Court of the United States well enough 
to know that if the judges had understood that question to be involved, they 
would have ordered it to be argued at the bar. The ease of Dred Scott was 
twice argued. After the first argument, conceiving that the importance and 
difficulty of the questions demanded an unusual degree of examination, the 
Court continued the cause for twelve months, and called upon counsel to argue 
it again. When it was called the second time, additional counsel were retained 
on both sides, and the ordinary rules of the court were suspended. The coun- 
sel, instead of being limited to two hours each, were allowed to aro-ue at their 
own pleasure. I say, again, it is an insu.lt to the court to affirm that a ques- 
tion of such magnitude, not involved in the ease, was considered and decided 
without intimating to counsel the propriety of its argument at the bar. There 
is not a respectable court in any State of the Union that would behave so. 
Judges have that much respect, at least, for themselves and their own profession. 

Now, sir, having disposed of the question of faith, let us look a little into the 
errors of practice of which the Senator complains. 

Mr. Green. Before the Senator leaves that subject, I hope he will permit 
me to make one remark. 

Mr. 1'ugii. Certainly. 

Mr. Green. T stated expressly that the question did not arise, whether a 
Territory could prohibit slavery by its own action ; but I stated that the ques- 
tion did arise whether Congress could prohibit slavery in a Territory ; that the 
Supreme Court decided that ; and that that was the law of the land ; and that 
they gave their unanimous opinion that a Territory could exercise no power 
beyond what Congress could exercise. That is what I stated, and wdiat I know 
the opinion will sustain, notwithstanding the remarks the Senator makes. 

Mr. Pugh. I have stated to the Senator that such was certainly the opinion 
of Judo-e McLean and Judo - e Curtis. 

Mr. Green. Of the whole court. 

Mr. Pugh. No, sir; Judge Catron dissented as to that very proposition. 
After the paragraph which the honorable Senator quoted the other day, the 
judge used this language: 

" It is due to myself to say, that it is asking much of a judge, who has for nearly twen- 
ty years been exercising jurisdiction from the western Missouri line to the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and on this understanding of the Constitution, inflicting the extreme penalty of 
death for crimes committed where the direct legislation of Congress was the only rule, to 
agree that he had been all the while acting in mistake, and as an usurper." 

It is evident that Judge Catron not only dissented, but that he felt involved, 
personally, by the decision that Congress had no power of municipal legislation 
over the Territories. His opinion covers many pages, but there is the pith of 
it. That is the reason why he dissented from the majority of the Court, and 
dissented with unusual warmth. He did not know into what scrapes"he might 
have fallen in the course of twenty years. 

Mr. Gwin. If (he Senator will permit me, he made an allusion in regard to 
the opinions of my late colleague in the Senate on this question from which I 
dissented at the time. I was told by my colleague, when I met him in Califor- 
nia, that he never entertained those opinions. 1 can find no remarks in the 
Congressional < clobe from him on the subject, (and if the Senator has any other, 

1 hope he will refer to them,) except these which I will send to the Secretary 

to read. The Former Senator from Michigan, (Mr. Stuarij,) who alluded to him, 
at the last session, did not state his position correctly. In tin: first place, Colo- 
nel Weller objected to the unqualified veto. That was the only portion to 
which he objected. Here are his remarks. As to his moving to strike out the 
provision to which the Senator alluded, I find that it was the Senator from Illi- 
nois (.Mr. Doi qlas) who made that motion; and he gives his reasons here in 



19 

the discussion with Colonel Weller. It is very short, and T Bhould Kke tlio 
Secretary to read what Mr. Weller and Mr. Douglas Baid. It is everything 

he said on the subject, and then the motion to strike out was made by the 
Senator from Illinois himself. 

The Clerk read it, as follows: 

"Mr. Welleu. I have a single remark to make, though not upon the point which is 
now being discussed. Although, as I said in my remarks on Monday last, 1 am in favor 
of the general principles of the bill, there are some provisions in it which do not receive 
the sanction of my judgment. I may refer to that which confers upon the Governor an 
unqualified veto. 1 do not think I can vote for any territorial bill which contains a pro- 
Vision of that sort. I see no reason why the Committee on Territories should have re- 
ported this bill, on this point, differently from those which have precedi d ii in our legis- 
lation. The veto of the Governor should be a qualified one. I believe in Oregon a bare 
majority of the Territorial Legislature can overrule the veto of the Governor. I am wil- 
ling however, to place it where the Constitution of the United States has placed the veto 
power here. I would require two thirds of the Legislature to overrule the veto of the 
Governor; and I would not, under any circumstances, invest an absolute and unqualified 
veto in one man. I cannot vote for the bill with such a provision in it. 

"Mr. Douglas. The friends of this bill have had the provision to which the Senator 
from California has referred, and some others, under consideration, and they intend to 
dispose of these two points — that is, tin veto power of the Governor, and as to the re- 
visory power of Congress, when we arrive at them. These two provisions are in this bill 
because they were in the Utah bill, which was our guide. I am aware that the former 
territorial bills gave the Governor only a qualified veto. I believe the Iowa bill required 
two thirds of the Legislature to overrule the veto; and in the Oregon bill a majority was 
required. I intend, when we get through with this provision, to call the especial atten- 
tion of the Senate to that subject, and state what my own views are upon it. The clause 
providing for a revision of the laws by Congress has been uniformly inserted, and it arose 
in this way: In the early history of this country, a Territory was legislated for by the 
Governor and judges. Inasmuch as they had no Legislature, no representation, no popu- 
lar government, we required their laws to be submitted here, either for approval or dis- 
approval. Since the Territories have had Legislatures, it has become a serious question 
whether any such revision is necessary ; bat the friends of the bill will consider that mat- 
ter when we get through with this point. I renew my motion to postpone the further 
consideration of the bill, in order that we may proceed to the consideration of executive 
business." — Congressional Globe, vol. 28, part first, Jirst session, 83</ Congress, page 423. 

Mr. Gwin. If the Senator from Ohio knows of any other remarks made by 
my former colleague, I should like him to refer to them. Colonel Weller told 
me that it was a mistake to suppose that he ever made such a motion, and I 
see it was made by the Senator from Illinois. 

Mr. Pugh. I do not deem that material. I was not a member of the Sen- 
ate at the time; but I heard the matter mentioned frequently while Colonel 
Weller continued to be a member; and if I am not greatly in error, he once 
boasted that the amendment was made at his suggestion. 

Mr. Green. I wish to ask one question : whether in that argument which 
has been read, of the Senator from Illinois, it is said that the power of legisla- 
tion in the Territories was vested in the Governor and judges. 

Mr. Gwin. Yes, sir; that was it. 

Mr. Green. I know it is true in point of fact; but the Senator from Ohio 
disputed it the other day, when I was making my remarks, and I wanted it con- 
firmed by the Senator from Illinois. 

Mr. Pugh. What fact? 

Mr. Green. That the power of legislation was vested in the Governor and 
judges in some of the Territories. 

Mr. Pugh. The Senator seeks to engage me in a mere contest of words. 
There was a power conferred on the Governor and judges, in some of the Terri- 
tories, to copy from the laws of the States. If the Senator calls that a legisla- 
tive power, he may have whatever satisfaction it will afford. 

Mr. Green. I know what the power was. 

Mr. Pugh. I said that the Governor and judges of the Northwestern Terri- 
tory assumed a general legislative power ; attempted to enact laws compiled 
from the statutes of several States; a codification, in short, of those statutes; 
and that their proceedings were annulled by Congress. 



20 

Mr. Green. T ask for the reading again of the remarks of the Senator from 
Illinois on that subject, to see whether he agrees with me or the Senator from 
Ohio. 

Mr. Pugh. The Senator can read them for himself at another time. They 
will be in the report of my speech, and the Senator may have the benefit of 
that. I object to no controversy between him and myself, but I object to bring- 
ing in third persons. 

Mr. Green. The remarks were read at the Secretary's desk, and I want 
them reread, because they confirm every word I said yesterday. 

Mr. Hale. I object to their being read more than once. 

Mr. Green. I ask that they be read as my argument. 

Mr. Hale. Very well ; then I do not object. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

"The clause providing for a revision of the laws by Congress lias been uniformly in- 
serted, and it arose in this way : In the early history of this country, a territory was 
legislated for by the Governor and judges." * 

Mr. Green. That is all I want. 

Mr. Hale. That is enough 

Mr. Green. Who was speaking? 

The Clerk. Mr. Douglas. 

Mr. Green. That is all I want. 

Mr. 1 A' gii. If it can afford any satisfaction to the Senator, he is welcome to it. 

Mr. Green. It is very satisfactory. 

Mr. Pugh. It is true that the policy of the Federal Government toward the 
Territories has become more liberal and more sensible as these questions have 
been further discussed. The Senator glorified the ordinance of 1787 as a 
model of territorial government : let me invite his attention to some of its pro- 
visions. In the first place, no man could vote, in the Northwestern Territory, 
unless he had a freehold estate in fifty acres of land ; and, at that time, there 
being no subdivision of the public domain, as at present, this amounted to a 
prohibition of the right of suffrage to three-fourths of the inhabitants. No 
man could be a member of the Legislative Assembly, under the ordinance of 
1787, unless he owned an estate of fee simple in two hundred acres of land; 
and the Council of the Territory was composed of candidates named by the 
Assembly, and selected by the President and the Senate of the United Stat ss. 
The Governor of the Northwestern Territory had an absolute and unqualified 
veto upon all acts of legislation ; a veto which could not be overruled by the 
unanimous vote of both J louses of the Legislature — and, in addition, an abso- 
lute power to prorogue and dissolve the Legislature at his own will. It was 
that legislation which aroused the people of the Northwest to claim their rights 
Congress, and their appeals compelled Congress to abrogate such mon- 
strous invasions of liberty and justice. I said yesterday, and have said it fre- 
quently before, that the ordinance of 1787 drove the people of Ohio to the 
. >il war; and you will find, in the American State Papers, a letter 
from the President of a Convention of delegates, in Ohio, protesting against 
the in' tyranny of such government** The difficulty was solved by 

admitting the State of Ohio into the Union, and forthwith relaxing, as to the 
Territory of [ndiana, some of these objectionable provisions; In the course of 
tune, 1m, i!i fur Indiana and Illinois, step by step, at the instance of the Territo- 
rial Legislatures, the stringen&y of the ordinance was abated; hiitil, by the time 
Michigan applied for admission into the Union, nothing was left but a qualified 
veto and a power in Congress to revise the Territorial legislation. Put, sir, we 
have since improved on that. From an absolute veto of the Governor, we pro- 
gressed to a veto which two-thirds of the Legislature might overrule; and then 

•Letter of James Finley, Chairman, and Joseph Kerr, Secretary, to Thomas Worthing- 
ton, dated at Ohillicothe, February VI, 18U2. — American State )'iij,> rs, "Miscellaneous," 
vol. \, j»kj> 829. 



21 

to a veto which a majority might overrule ; and, finally, in the K. 
bill which the Democratic party adopted as a model for Territorial govern- 
^aeilts we struck out the provision requiring the laws of the Territory I 
submitted to Congress for approval. 

1 promised to deal with certain alleged errors of practice. 'Hie Senator from 
idissouri has deprecated this discussion. He attributes the whole faull to th( 
Senator from Illinois; declares that, in his speech al Freeport,in l 58, the Sen- 
ator from Illinois gave birth to the doctrine of squatter sovereignty, and pro 
jjuced infinite mischief in the Democratic ranks. What did from 

Illinois say on that occasion ? I have not his speech before me; but, if 1 re- 
collect it, he said that the people of a territor) might, in the exi rcise of their 
right of taxation and other rights of police regulation, so v slavery 

that slaveholders would not come into the Territory with slaves. '1 hat, 1 be- 
lieve, was called the doctrine of unfriendly legislation. Is it true that the Sen- 
ator from Illinois first suggested that doctrine? Why, sir, 1 could show yon 
from the Globe, it' it were necessary, that it was proclaimed in the other House 
of Cono-ress, in December, 1855, and by southern men. It was proclaimed by 
one gentleman, at least, now in Mr. Buchanan's immediate confidence. Mr. 
Clerk, will you read this? 

The Clerk read, as follows : 

"The Territory being the common property of States, equals in the Union, and bound 
by the Constant ion which recognizes property in slaves, it is an abuse of terms to call 
aggression the migration into that Territory of one of its joint owners, because earning 
With him any species of property recognized by the Constitution of the United States. 
The Federal Government has no power to declare what is property any where. The 
power of each State cannot extend beyond its own limits. As a consequence, therefore, 
whatever is property in any of the States must be so considered in any of the Territo- 
ries of the United States until they reach to the dignity of community independence* 
■when the subject-matter will be entirely under the control of the people and lie deter- 
mined by their fundamental law. If the inhabitants of any Territory should refuse to 
enact such laws and police regulations as would give security to their property or to his, 
it would be rendered more or less valueless in proportion to the difficulty ot holding ll 
without, such protection. In the case of property in the labor of man, or what is usually 
called slave property, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could nol ordina- 
rily retain it. Therefore, though the fight would remain, the remedy being withheld, it 
would follow that the owner would be practically debarred by the circumstances of the 
case from taking slave property into a Territory where the sense of the inhabitants was 
opposed to the introduction. So much for the oft-repeated fallacy of forcing slavery 
upon any community." 

Mr. Pugfh. That is the language of the. Senator from Mississippi, (Mr. Da- 
vis,) at Portland. I have read, or rather the Clerk has read, an extract from 
the revised copy of his speech. 

Mr. Davis. I bog the Senator's pardon. I did not bear it. What is it I 

Mr. Pugh. I thought the Senator was listening to me, or 1 would have 
called bis attention to the extract. 

Mr. Davis. 1 did not hear it. 

Mr. Pugh When that sort of language is used — 

Mr. Davis. Just tell me what the language is. Refer me to what you were 
reading. 

Mr. Pugh. Yes, sir; I have sent you the pamphlet by one of the pages. 

Mr. Davis. I wish to say beforehand that the Senator mates a mistake 
when he talks about a revised speech. Those speeches were so misrepresented 
that I did not choose to revise them. They were published as they were found 
in the newspapers. To give all critics the benefit of whatever ha 1 been in the 
papers, they were published as they stood, without my revision. (After read- 
ing the extract.) Oh, yes; that is practically true. 

"Mr. Pugh. I read from a pamphlet published under the Senator's own m- 
pervision, and with a preface to it. I did not know whether the Senator revised 
the speech 

Mr. Davis. You do know. I tell you, I did not. 



22 

Mr. Pugh. I did not know when I first spoke. Now I do. I said it to 
correct myself. 

Mr. Davis. 1 beg your pardon, sir. 

Mr. IYgh. Now, sir, 1 do not presume to say what the Senator meant. 
His language may, or may not, have been as there reported; but I will say 
what impression would have been produced on my mind if I had been one of 
the audience. It is a speech addressed to the people of a northern State. It 
is in reply to an oft-repeated charge of forcing slavery upon a community — 
those are the words of the speech; and if I had heard the Senator employ such 
language, I could scarcely have arrived at any other conclusion than that he 
was, in the very language of the Senator from Missouri, suggesting to the peo- 
ple of a Territory how they could exclude slavery in the most effectual manner. 

Mr. Davis. Then 1 will only say to the Senator that I addressed a more in- 
telligent audience who put no such construction upon my language; who "und r- 
stood perfectly what I meant — that any attempt by laws to force slavery into a 
community where all of the community were opposed to it would be utterly 
futile. They understood perfectly well from more than is reported, for I recol- 
lect the argument went beyond what is reported, that all laws were dead upon 
the statute-book, if they were resisted by public opinion ; that no character of 
property could be held in it which depended upon the protection of juries, if 
juries were all opposed to it — the particular case cited was the case of Utah — 
that, enact what laws we might, they fell dead before the Mormon juries; that 
crime stalked unrebuked, and went necessarily unpunished, because no jury 
could be empanneled which would not side with Mormons committing any 
offence whatever against one of our people. I know not what construction the 
Senator may put upon the language, nor what conclusion he may arrive at, but 
I am quite sure the intelligent audience I addressed never misunderstood my 
opinion. 

Mr. Pugh. Well, sir, I cannot say what the audience understood, but the 
Senator's language is in print; it will go forth to the country, to the North 
and to the South, that in a speech to a northern audience, in the State of Maine, 
he spoke thus. 

Mr. Davis. But you put in that what you do not find there. You talk 
about legislation. There was no legislation in the speech ; there was nothing 
said there about legislation. I did not suppose the case of improper and un- 
constitutional legislation being permitted to stand upon the statute-book when 
Congress had the power to revise it; and when I knew that, although in a ter- 
ritorial bill to which the Senator refers, the whole power of Congress over it 
was omitted, nevertheless, he and others assumed the ground that Congress 
could not divest itself of the duty; and he did revise the laws of Kansas, and 
lie did vote to repeal certain laws which he considered obnoxious. 

Mr. !'i gh. 1 intend in speak of that after a while. 

Mr. Davis. You find nothing there about legislation. You find something 
about the power of the people opposed to any particular character of property ; 
opposed, if you please, to any amount of legislation admitting the right which 
a citizen might claim under those laws. 

Mr. Pugh. Let us see clearly what the Senator said: 

" If th«- inhabitants of any Territory should refuse to enact such laws and police regu- 
lations as w miI<] give security to their property or to his, it would be^rendered more or 
less valueless in proportion to the difficulty of holding it -without such protection. In the 
case of property in the labor of man, or what, is usually called slave property, the inse- 
curity would I"- so greal that the owner could not ordinarily retain it Therefore, though 
the right would remain, the remedy being withheld, it would follow that the owner 
would be practically d< barred by the circumstances of the ease from taking slave property 
into a Territory v, In re the Bense of the inhabitants was opposed to its introduction. So 
much for the ofi-rcp<'!il<'d fallacy of forcing slavery upon any community." 

Now, if a Territorial Legislature were in session, and looking about for ways 
and means i<> prevenl slaves from being brought into the Territory, what could 
it have done better than to follow the Sonator's advice? 



23 

Mr. Davis. Docs the Senator — I ask him the question, and ! put the i 
tion to his fairness and integrity — docs he say there is advice there to a Terri- 
torial Legislature to pass laws embarrassing the right of any citizen .' 

Mr. Pugh. If the Senator did not mean so to say, ! will give him the benefit 

of it; but I certainly understand the language 

Mr. Davis. Understand that to be advice to a Territorial Legislature to pa 

laws embarrassing the rights of a citizen \ 

Mr. Pugh. No, sir; but to pass no laws. 

Mr. Davis. You understand that to be advice to a Territorial Legislature to 
pass no laws to confer protection on the right of a citizen ? 

Mr. Pugh. The Senator certainly did not hear what I said before the intro- 
duction of this extract, or he would not ask me. The Senator from Mis ouri 
said that the language of the Senator from Illinois, at Freeport, was taken as 
"advice by the Territorial Legislatures; and 1 say it was no more advice t<> a. 
Territorial Legislature than this — not a whit. That is my proposition. 

Mr. Davis." The Senator has no right to say that even, because there is no- 
thing there about legislation. The whole idea there — and it is strange t<» me 
that the Senator cannot take it in — is, that if ( !ongress were to pass any amount 
of laws, such as it is possible to pass of a general character, that still certain 
police regulations are necessary in every community for the protection of pro- 
perty ; that those police regulations are greater, from the nature of the property, 
in the case of slaves, than any other; and that in a community which was hos- 
tile, in a community which would permit every citizen to harbor a runaway 
slave, in a community so lost to every sense of justice that when a jury was 
cmpannelled, it would not punish one who harbored the property and secreted 
the property of another, that the rights of that property would be almost value- 
less, being restricted entirely to such as would resist the temptation of those who 
criminally persuaded the slave to runaway from the master. These is nothing 
about legislation. It is merely to show that it was a fraud upon the people to 
tell them that Congress was seeking, by law, to compel them to receive what 
they were unwilling to hold. 

Mr. Pugh. The Senator was not speaking of Congress on that occasion. 
The language is not applied to Congress, but to the people of a Territory. 

Mr. Davis. It was applied to the people of a Territory; but everybody 
knew my opinions. They knew them then as they do now. They knew I 
claimed rights under the Constitution; that I claimed Congress had power to 
legislate for a Territory ; that the Territorial organization or corporation was 
the creature of Congress, was its agent, and but an indirect mode by which 
Congress legislated in the Territories. Everybody knew my opinions. The 
Senator has had a chance to know them. The people there had a chance to 
know them. They did know them. It is nothing like the case where a Terri- 
torial Legislature was referred to as having the power by unfriendly legislation 
to destroy the enjoyment of a right which a citizen had under the Constitution 
and under the laws of Congress. 

Mr. Pugh. Well, sir, I declare, without meaning any disrespect to the Sen- 
ator, I do not see that he has altered the case a whit. 1 have read his language, 
and it may go to the country, so far as I am concerned, withoui another word 
of comment. 

Mr. Davis. Oh, the Senator need not talk that way. I sent it to the coun- 
try. I sent it to put down cavilers who reported me as saying what I did net. 
I sent it to the fair and discriminating judgment of the people, that they might 
see what I had said, and form their own opinions. Exactly such perversion of 
language as the Senator attempts was my inducement to print it and circulate 
it freely. 

Mr. Pugh. The only perversion of the Senator's language consi 
ing it. 

Mr. Davis. The Senator has done more than that. 

Mr. Pugh. From first to last, that is all. 



24: 

Mr. Davis. The Senator lias done more than read it. 

Mr. Pugh. Very little; and so far as giving it circulation is concerned] 
what further circulation it can have by republication in my speech, it shall 
have. 

Mr. 1 >avis. The Senator does not hear me, or docs not comprehend me. I 
say I gave it circulation in order to put down unjust criticisms which were putt 
upon my remarks by interpolating what I did not say, and giving a construe 
tion to it which the language did not bear; and I leave it to stand together :j 
with the construction which the Senator has attempted. 

Mr. Pugh. Well, I have read the paragraph twice, or rather, I read it once 
and {he ( llerk read it once. I say again, and leave it to third persons, every- 
where, if a Territorial Legislature were in session, and desirous to prevent the' 
immigration of slaves, what could it have done better than to have passed no i 
law at all — if the Senator's opinion, as expressed in that paragraph, be cor- 
rect ? 

Mr. Davis. I should have a hard task, I perceive, to make the Senator 
comprehend anything which he does not want to see; but I will tell him once 
for all that the Territorial Legislatures do not pass all the police laws which 
exist within a State. Police boards and courts of justice usually pass the police 
laws or regulations which lead to the employment of patrol and other persons 
who preserve peace, who prevent the escape of slaves, and return them to their 
masters, and take up runaways and confine them until they are claimed. 

'Mr. Pugh. I do not see that it makes any difference whether the laws are 
passed by the Territorial Legislature, or by justices of the peace — if they have 
any such power. 

Mr. Davis. I did not say justices of the peace passed laws. 

Mr. Pugh. I perceive it would be idle for me to have any further contro- 
versy with the Senator at present. 

Mr. Davis. Yes, quite. 

Mr. Pugh. I said that the Senator was not speaking of Congress on that 
occasion, and I wdll read his language, once more, without any interpolation: 

" If the inhabitants of any Territory should refuse to enact such laws and police regu- 
lations as would give security to their property or to his, it would be rendered more or 
less valueless, iu proportion to the difficulty of holding it without such protection. In 
the case of property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave property, the 
insecurity would be so great that the owner could not ordinarily retain it. Therefore, 
though the right would remain, the remedy being withheld, it would follow that the 
owner woul 1 be practically debarred by the circumstances of the case from taking slave 
property into a Territory where the sense of the inhabitants was opposed to its intro- 
duction. So much for the oft-repeated fallacy of forcing slavery upon any community." 

Now, having been thrice read, I leave it. But the accusation of the Senator 
from Missouri was that an expression of his individual opinion, by the Senator 
from Illinois, in answer to a question at Freeport, in the Stal i of Illinois, could 
only be l ken as an invitation to the Territorial Legislature to refrain from 
passing laws for the; protection of slave property, or an invitation so to exercise 
their power of taxation, and other legislative powers, as to prevent the intro- 
ducti -a of slaves. That was his accusation. In order to prove how groundless 
tic accusation is, 1 repeat that if the Senator from Illinois could be charged 
with such an offence, merely because of his speech at Freeport, the accusation 
could b ■ quite as well established against the Senator from Mississippi for what 
he said at Portland; but I do not charge either the Senator from Mississippi, 
or the Senator from Illinois, with such consequences. The Senator from Mis- 
souri, however, proceeded, in a few minute-;, to overturn his own accusation — 

Mr. Davis. I wish the Senator would go on. I want him to say as much 
as he pleases in my case, and 1 want him, in that connection, to show the 
identity between the assertion of the right to do a thing and the admission of 
the power; the assertion of the right to steal and the admission of the capacity 

a I. 

Mr. Pugh. 1 do not see that it is material. I can sec nothing in that. 



25 

It reminds me of a man who should address an infuriated assembly of people, 
and tell them not to tar and feather some one else, because it would be very 
bad, and contrary to law; /but, at the same time, should enl irge np< n their 
numbers and the feasibility of doing it without interruption. 1 think he could 
hardly escape afterwards, at the bar of public opinion, by alleging that he drew 
a distinction between the abstract right and the actual power. 

Mr. Davis. I did not mean to interrupt the Senator again ; but be goes ( 
to make a charge against the people 1 addressed. They were not an infuriated 
mob. They were a body of intelligent men, and most of them men true to 
pur constitutional rights ; men with whom 1 had associated long enough to 
understand them, and whom I am proud to remember as my friends; men as 
true to the Constitution as if they lived in any other portion of the country, so 
far as "it involves the protection of property in slaves; nun who, unlike the 
Senator, do not grope about in old records and read scraps from the decisions 
of the Supreme Court to prove that there is no right of protection, and that 
the legislative power of a Territory is commensurate with anything which its 
will may dictate. 1 was not addressing an infuriated mob; not addres ingmen 
■who souoht, by any indirection, to exclude their fellow-citizens from the Terri- 
tories ; but men of genuine Democracy, who recognized equality of right every- 
where, who indorsed the opinions I entertained, and who indorse them still. 

Mr. Pugh. The Senator may proceed with his eulogy upon himself and his 
audience without contradiction from me; nor shall I reply to bis gracious re- 
mark that I have groped about for "scraps" to prove anything whatsoever. I 
submit what 1 have said to the country, and particularly to the legal profession. 
I did not say the Senator was addressing an infuriated mob. I said that such 
language, uttered in the hearing of a Territorial Legislature, might be construed 
as if a man should address a mob in the circumstances which 1 suggested. It 
might be taken as an invitation. 

But the Senator from Missouri proceeded, in a few moments, to overturn his 
own accusation. He said that the remark of the Senator from Illinois, at Free- 
port, was considered as a remark uttered in the heat of debate, and should 
have been forgotten, and no attention paid to it; yet that very remark cost the 
Senator from Illinois the chair of the Committee on Territories, in this body, 
if the Senator from California be a true witness. He had not raised any strife 
on the subject ; and had not even reached Washington City, at the ensuing 
session of the Senate, before he was degraded. 
Mr. Green. Will the Senator allow me a word? 
Mr. Prom Certainly. 

Mr. Green. 1 said that when that remark was first made I regarded it as a 
mere accidental expression in the ardor of debate! I never said that he was 
removed from Lis -position as chairman of the Committee on Territories in con- 
sequence of it — never. Others may have said so. I was opposed to his re- 
moval ; and it it can restore harmony and unity in the Democratic party, I am 
willing to resign my place to-day, not only as chairman of that Committee, but 
as a member of the American Senate. The good of the American Union is 
superior to my position cither as a Senator or chairman of a committee. But 
the Senator from Illinois repeated that declaration in several speeches, at Mem- 
phis, at New-Orleans, and other places in his triumphal march to the Capitol. 
I do not know, but I suppose it was in consequence of these repeated remarks 
that it was taken as a settled opinion rather than a mere accidental expression. 
Mr. Douglas. Does the gentleman mean that that remark gave me a tri- 
umphal march in all the slaveholding States where I repeated ii '. 

Mr. Green. I certainly do not ; but that the Senator in his triumphal march 
repeated the same thing. Then, however, he said always that the end was to 
be accomplished by unfriendly legislation, by indirect means, never by a direct 
territorial prohibitory act. 

Mr. Douglas. I will simply state that at Freeport, in reply to a question, 
I did say that slavery might be excluded from a Territory by non-action, and 



26 

also by unfriendly legislatron. I had made the same remark in the Senate 
over and over again, in 1850, and during every session of Congress from that 
time to the period when I was removed from the chairmanship of the Commit- 
tee on Territories. Every member of the Senate, during that whole period, 
knew that I held those sentiments. I had been eleven times appointed chair- 
man of the Committee on Territories, by the unanimous vote of this body, after 
I had repeated those remarks over and over again. If gentlemen desire to 
make an issue on this point, 1 will show the fact from the record. 

Mr. Mason. Will the Senator allow me to interrupt him for a moment? 

Mr. Douglas. Yes. 

Mr. Mason. I ask the Senator if I understood him correctly to say that the 
opinions now avowed, and which he has heretofore avowed, of the right of a 
Territory by unfriendly legislation to expel slavery, or to prevent its coming 
there, were known to belong to him in 1850 by every member of the Senate? 

Mr. Douglas. I will say this : There is no member of the Senate who 
has an excuse for not knowing my opinions. You can hardly open the con- 
gressional debates of that period, at any page, without finding them expressed. 
Again in 1852, in 185:3, in 1854, in 1855, and in 1856, they were uttered in 
the presence of every Senator then in the Senate — not once, not twice, not ten 
times, but just as often as the question arose. I beg pardon, however, for utter- 
ing a word ; I ought not to put this into the speech of my friend from Ohio. 

Mr. Pcgh. I am very happy to have it there. 

Mr. Green. Mr. President- 

The Presiding Officer, (Mr. Bigler in the chair.) The Senator from 
Ohio is entitled to the floor. Does he yield it to the Senator from Missouri? 

Mr. Pugh. Yes, sir. 

[A long debate ensued from this interruption, between Messrs. Green and Davis on the 
one side, and Mr. Douglas oil the other, which is omitted here.] 

Mr. Green. Mr. President 

Mr. Pugh. I hope the Senator will suffer me to proceed, or I shall never 
be able to finish my speech. 

Mr. Green. I have a very few words to say. 

The Presiding Officer, The Senator from Ohio has the right to the floor. 
Does he yield it to the Senator from Missouri? 

Mr. Pugh. If this be the last time, I will. 

Mr. Green. This is the last, and this was interpolated without my consent. 
I say the Senator from Illinois may fire at the lump whenever it suits his con- 
venience ; it makes no difference to me, and he will find not only a lump, but 
he will find an individual that will meet him at Philippi. I know that prior to 
the decision of the Dred Scott case, there was a difference of opinion, but all 
agreed that we would submit to the decision of the Supreme Court. I know, 
and I therefore assert it, that no man claimed any more power in the Territory 
than Congress possessed, up to the decision of the Dred Scott case. I know, 
and therefore mean exactly what 1 say, that the court did in that decision de- 
cide that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories. I know, 
also, thai they gave a unanimous opinion that a Territory could have no more 
power than Congress. 1 have never contended, I do not now contend, nor has 
any reasonable conscientious lawyer or statesman in this Union pretended, that 
it was a decision of thai precise poinl ; but it was an opinion, the unanimous 
opinion of the court, for even those judges who dissented from the judgment 
gave if as their opinion, that a Territory had and could have no more power 
than Conj ' itself. 

Now , the Senator says, lot us bow in due submission to the court. So say I ; 
but if ■ ill agreed on that, why is it that these appeals are made to in- 
flame the public judgment, and excite prejudice, before the court pronounces 
upoB tin- question i The court has already pronounced upon one question, and 
the court has already given its opinion upon another. They first said that 
has no power to prohibit slavery. They then gave their unanimous 



27 

opinion that the Territory had no more power than Cob that all il 

thority was derivative, secondary. This being the opinion of the court, he who 
undertakes to excite public prejudice against it, is seeking, bj lie- acts whether 
by design or otherwise, I will not say — to stir up a state of feeling w hich, when 
the judgment is pronounced, may induce the people to curse the court, d< noum e 
the tribunal, raise another cry like that which the Senator from New York- 
raised before, that we must reform the court and break it down. My object is 
to keep it up to its present high position. It has behaved in a manner that 
commands the admiration of any honorable man. Profound for learning, hon- 
orable, and beyond the reproach of any man under the sun, why is it we can- 
not say that that court shall be respected as the highest tribunal of the land? 
If so, and if there is nothing to quarrel about, and we all agree to a subsequent 
submission of this question, it needed no long Harper essays ; it Deeded no long- 
replies ; it needed no long speeches; but leave the question exactly as it is, and 
then you and I, and all of us, can act together against the common enemy. 

Mr. Put; n. Mr. President, it is easy for Senators to thrust personal feeling 
and personal character into a discussion. That was attempted by the Senator 
from Mississippi, and seems to have been imitated by the Senator from Missouri. 
As to the assertion that no Senator ever claimed for a Territorial Legislature 
more power, over this subject, than Congress had delegated, did 1 not read, on 
yesterday, from my own speeches, in the Senate, the repeated declaration that 
Congress had no power over the subject because it belonged to the Territorial 
Legislatures exclusively? If that does not silence the Senator from Missouri, 
what is the use of further debate? I never did believe, from the first day of 
the Wilmot proviso, that Congress had any power to prohibit or establish 
slavery in the Territories. I believed then, as I believe now, that the Terri- 
torial Legislatures have that power. I agree, nevertheless, that it is a question 
which the courts must decide; and when the Supreme Court of the United 
States shall have decided it, I will submit to the decision. If that decision be 
in my favor, I expect others to submit; if it should be against me, I shall sub- 
mit. 

But the Senator from Missouri attempts another extraordinary enterprise. He 
seeks to overpower us by mere assertion, repeated again and again, that the Supreme 
Court has decided so and so. I have been practising at the bar almost sixteen 
years ; have been charged with the defense of men's lives, and liberty, and the 
titles of their property ; and I am accustomed to rely, somewhat, on my own 
powers of legal judgment. I have examined the Dred Scott case three or four 
or five times, with the utmost care, for the purpose of ascertaining what the 
court intended to decide. I have stated the results to-day ; and, that there 
might be no mistake, I reduced those results to an exact form. In my opinion, 
the court never decided, and never intended to decide, tins question ; and I will 
not suffer the Senator from Missouri to say: "the court has decided against 
you, and you must submit; or, if you do not submit, we will expel you from 
the Democratic party." Some of us have a title in the party as well as the 
Senator; and those gentlemen who are so anxious to take us in hand, here or 
elsewhere, may find themselves embarrassed by Tartar captives. 

I have said enough as to the accusation that the Sen:;!: r from Illinois, by his 
speech at Freeport, provoked a controversy in the Democratic ranks. The 
Senator from Missouri laments the debate and division here. Who introduced 
the debate? Why, sir, on the 23d of February, 1859, an honorable Senator 
from Mississippi (Mr. Prowst) rose in his place, and not merely announced hi? 
own opinion, but called upon the northern Democratic Senators, one by one, to 
answer him. He did not allow us to remain silent; he challenged us, upon 
our honor, as Senators and as men, to give him a response. We did answer 
him ; and yet, while the Senator from Mississippi was a peace-maker, the Sen- 
ator from Missouri declares us to be disorganizes. Who began the debate this 
session? When the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Mason) proposed a resolution 
with regard to the occurrences at Harper's Ferry, which might well have called 



23 

oil evt >'cratic Senator from the North and from the South, and even 

upon Senators of other parties, to forget all else, the Senator from Gehrgaa (Mr. 

-i sought occasion once, twice, arid thrice, to assault, by name, the 

Senator from Illinois, (Mr. Douglas,) who was sick in his bed, and with him, 

the entire Democracy of the north western States. And for repelling such an 

[1 — for vindicating my own honor — the Senator from Missouri, who did 

not rebuke the Senator from Georgia, presumes now to rebuke me. This 

■• hole controversy has been thrust upon us with circumstances of such indig- 

Dd outrage as to leave us no option but to protest, as I do protest, that 

unless ii be silenced by fair and equal tolerance, here and at Charleston, it will 

seal the fate of the Democratic paity forever. 

But the Senator from Missouri said, and the Senator from Mississippi repeat- 
ed it, that I voted, with the Senator from Illinois, to annul certain acts of the 
Legislature of Kansas, in July, 1856; and the Senator from Missouri, instead 
of turning I » the pages where that vote is recorded, together with the explana- 
tions which accompanied it, quotes from another speech (contained in the same 
volume) where the matter was introduced, collaterally, in a debate between my 
colleague and myself. What were the Territorial laws which he says we pro- 
posed to annul ? Laws on the subjeet of the admission or exclusion of slavery ? 
We made no objection to them. It was an attempt of the first Legislature in 
Kansas, which many persons believed had not been fairly elected, to prevent all 
except their own friends from voting at subsequent elections. How did we 
interfere? Did we repeal any law 1 ? Xot at all. We applied the bill of rights, 
contained in the Constitution of the United States, to the Territory ; and left it 
to the decision of the judicial authorities, which, if any, Of the statutes of Kansas 
contravened, thbse principles. This wasdone by the Geyer amendment (so called) 
proposed by a Senator from Missouri, on the* 2d of Jul}-, 1S5G, as an amend- 
ment to the loombs bill. 

That bill contained in its eighteenth section a bill of rights. There was, at 
that time, and until the decision of the Dred Scott case, a difference of opinion 
whether or no the Constitution of the United States extended to the Territories. 
It was the subject of controversy here, at one time, between Mr. Souie and Mr. 
■ er; and i believe that Mr. AVebster, to the end of his life, denied to the 
Constitution of the United States any such effect. It was an open question, at 
all events, until the Dred Scott case. For that reason, the Senator from Georgia 
(Mr. Toombs) proposed to declare each provision contained in the bill of rights 
to the Constitution a fundamental condition of the Territorial existence. Mr. 
1 red to amend that section by the addition of these words : 

"No law shall be made, or have force or effect in said Territory, which shall require a 
test oath, or oath to support any act of Congress or other legislative act. as a qu 
ii"!i fi . ai y civil office or public trust, or fo,r any employment or | n feesion, oi to serve 

■ hich shall impose any tax upon, or condition to, 

the exercise of the right of suffrage by any qualified voter, or which shall re -train or 
prohibit di assion "I any law or subject of legislation in the said Territor} 7 , or 

the fp ion of opinion thereon by the i eople of said Territory." 

That is the whole extent of congressional interference on that occasion. Wc 

left it to tl : •. to d< cide what, laws of the Territory, if any, contravened 

al declaration; and we added it to the Toombs bill as a fundamental 

condition in amendment of the organical act. I will read what I then said: 

e 1 did not give that vote without explanation. It was on the 2d of 

July, 1856, an 1 at a time when I could no1 speak with any satisfaction : itwas 

a o'clock in the morning, and after a continuous session oi 

more than eighteen hours. Here is what T said : 

"In facti hen we have assumed the right to establish an organic law, 

that we can perfect thai organic law. Siirery, if we ascertain upon experience that, we 

ntial to the organization, we can supply it. The 

simple , not whether we shall interfere with tie In sal affairs of Kansas Ter- 

ritory in ,..., eral sense, but whether wc shall adopt amendments which were aprpro- 

: inal Id!!, and which, I undertake to say, would have been adopted in 



29 

the original bill, if this controversy had been foreseen. T agree lo nm 
said by the Senator froth. Mississippi, [Mr. Bbowk.] I mean to refrain, to t.h< 
ble decree, from interfering with these statutes; but when I am satisfied thai any act of 
the Legislature has gone beyond the purposes of, the organic law, that the 
has usurped an authority never intended to be conferred, and which, if exercised, over* 
throws the organic law, I am bound to go to the extent of setting that right, but no fur- 
ther." 

Again, after the Senator frorfi Mississippi (Mr. Brown) had interrupted me: 

"I shall stand by the side of the Senator in defence of the doctrine of non-interven- 
tion- nnl whenever lie shows me that any proposition contained in the amendment of the 
Senator from Missouri goes beyond the pur;"- e of lie original act, or would have been 
inappropriate as an amendment to the original act, I shall vote to strike that out. I shall 
not vole to overturn the laws of the Territory. I shall simply vote to perfect the organic 
haw by declaring that nobody, whether it be the Territorial Legislature, or any other 
body, shall ptit on the inhabitants of Kansas any conditions which were nol ign 
by Congress." — Appendix to Congressional Globe, Thirty- Fourth Congress, first session, 
page 803. 

I have agreed, at this very session, that Congress might intervene, justifiably, 
to the same extent, tor the advantage of slaveholders. If a Territorial Legis- 
lature, acting in bad faith, under the pretext of excluding slavery, should tit- 
tempt to discourage southern immigration, and usurp the possession or control 
of the Territory as against those who may seek thereafter to become inhabit- 
ants, I would vote for an amendment of the organieal act to repress that mis- 
conduct and usurpation. It is not in reference to such cases that our present 
discussion has arisen. 

I observe, also, in one of the newspapers, an accusation that the Senator 
from Illinois, (Mr. Douglas,) and I voted against a proposition of his colleague 
(Mr. Trumbull) to declare it the true intent and meaning of the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill that a Territorial Legislature could prohibit slavery. Well, sir, 
if the author of that accusation had examined the Congressiona' Globe, he 
would have understood us in a moment. The Toombs bill provided for the 
organization of a State government; and when the Senator from Illinois (Mr. 
Trumbull) offered his amendment, which he did twice, the friends of the bill, 
not merely his colleague (Mr. I)ougla3) and I, whose remarks are reported, 
but the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Bayard) and General Cass also, objected 
that the amendment was out of place, and said that they would sanction no 
such irregularity of legislation. The amendment was rejected twice, as the 
record will show, upon the ground that it had no pertinency to the bill. I 
forgot to give you (Mr. Bigler in the chair) credit tor a like explanation. It 
was said by the Senator from Illinois, by General Cass, by myself, and, if I 
mistake not, by you, that although the amendment expressed our opinions, there 
was no propriety in urging those opinions at such a time, or in such a manner. 
Yet those votes have been paraded before the country as evidence that the 
Senator from Illinois and I did not then understand the Kansas-Nebr&Ska bill 
as we now understand it. 

I refer to these things because, while the Senator from Missouri accuses us of 
creating a disturbance in the Democratic party, and while the Senator from Mis- 
sissippi speaks loftily of our groping about in old records, not a stone has been 
left unturned by our adversaries — no, sir, not even a pebble — in order to misrep- 
resent, and, if possible, destroy us. 

The Senator from Missouri complains that the country has been Hooded 
with speeches on this subject. And who did it? The President of the United 
States? The Vice President of the United States? Or the Senator hirriself? 
Who introduced the discussion ? Who thrust it into the President's message } 
Who addressed a State Legislature? Who began controversy here? When 
we are driven to the wall, by a formidable combination, the Senator accuses us 
of creating disturbance if we so much as open our mouths to protest or respond. 
I do not object to the Senator's flooding my State with his speeches. 1 have 
sent many of his speeches thither on former occasions; and if he is able to bear 
the expense, I shall be very much obliged if he will send a copy of his speech 



30 

to every one of my constituents. And I wish him joy of all the converts he 
will make. 

I never found that the discussion of any question, fairly conducted, would 
injure the Democratic party, or any other party that ought to stand ; but I 
complain of the Senator and others, from the South, that, instead of adhering 
to a contract, plainly written, thoroughly understood, they have undertaken to 
violate it in a most flagrant and shameless manner; and then, because we do 
not submit to this, presume to think that the lash of executive dictation, 
the removal of postmasters or custom-house officers, will compel us to change 
our opinions. 

The Senator from Missouri says that he is not for congressional intervention. 
Then, what does he desire ? What does he ask us to do ? The Senator from 
Georgia insists that, forthwith, as soon as the House of Representatives shall 
have been organized, Congress shall enact some law whereby each man can i 
take his slave into a Territory, and hold the slave against all opposition; not! 
merely against legislative prohibition, but against the arts of those who may! 
desire to tamper with the slave. I believe that one of the Senators from Missis- 
sippi suggested an act of Congress to punish any man who should entice a slave 
to drink whiskey 

Mr. Davis. Which Senator from Mississippi ? 

Mr. Pugh. I did not mean you, sir. Your colleague asked how slaves could 1 
be secure in a Territory if any one might sell them liquors with impunity, and ] 
thus reuder them wortl'iless. Such, at least, is my recollection. 

What, then, is the use of a Territorial Legislature ? Why not abolish it ? jjj 
Why appropriate money for Councillors and Representatives to assemble in 
the various Territories, and make laws, when their laws amount to naught ? If 1 
we are to proceed thus, why not assume all power into our own hands? After ' 
the Democratic party of the United States has proclaimed in its platform, fori 
twelve years, proclaimed by the mouths of its orator*, South and North, that 
it desired to drive the subject of slavery out of Congress, must the doors now 
be thrown open, and the negroes be brought back, in triumphal procession, a? j 
the end of all our labor ? It seemed to me, whilst listening to the speech of the 
Senator from Georgia, that he considered white men of no use except to guard H 
negroes, and conduct them safely into the Territories and elsewhere. 

Now, sir, I do not comprehend the halfway sovereignty for which the Senator I 
from Missouri contends, and which is claimed by the Republican party, also, in 
the Philadelphia platform. The Senator and the Republicans start together. 
and, afterwards, are equally inconsistent. The Republicans affirm that Congress 
has sovereign power over the Territories; but its sovereignty can only be exer-| 
cised to prohibit slavery. The Senator from Missouri says that Congress has 
sovereign power over the Territories; but can only exercise its sovereignty to 
establish or protect slavery. Now, sir, if Congress has any such sovereign 
power, it can do either— the one as well as the other. This one-legged sover- 
eignty is a very lame affair. When you have proven that Congress has 
sun, reign power" in respect to the Territories, you may sharpen your teeth for 
the Wilmot Proviso. . ., . 

The Senator from Missouri objects to the phrase " popular sovereignty in 
this discussion. Be says that the Territories are not sovereign, and that we 
have so acknowledged. In a technical sense, I did acknowledge that no Ter- 
ritory was sovereign; but why are we befogged, in a discussion, by mere 
phrases? Senators seem to imagine it a sort of inevitable necessity, that there 
should be sovereignty somewhere. I do not believe there is any sovereignty ] 
in a Territory ; and 'I do not see why that word is interpolated into our discus- 
B j on< h is not to be found in the Constitution of the United States, and I 
doubt whether it can be found in the constitution of any State. It is a mere j 
ghosl brought in to confuse a subject which might otherwise be plain enough. 
I have heard this phrase " popular sovereignty" employed— I did not invent | 
it— in contradistinction to the claim of congressional sovereignty. One party 



31 

asserted that Congress bad sovereign power; the other responded thai the peo- 
ple enjoyed whatever sovereignty the case would allow. 

Mr. President; the Senator from Georgia admonished me, and all of lis, in 
regard to the Charleston convention, lie said : 

" The southern States ought to demand of their northern brethren thai, in the estab- 
lishment of every territorial governmenl by Congress, their slave property should I 
upon the same footing of all other property which shall be carried into the Territorial : 
that it be recognized as property ; that the relations of the parties be regulated am! de- 
fined and that ample remedies lie provided for its protection and enjoymenl during the 
exists!, ee of the territorial government. They ought to demand that th< se rights should 
be so recognized, and their property so protected that they may fi el secure and safe in 
emigrating to the Territory with their slaves; and in the event that Congress should re* 
fuse or fail to accord to them these acts of simple justice and equality, if it should come 
short of its duty, and its whole duty, the most sacred duty of all governments, to provide 
for the security, protection, and enjoyment of all its citizens, of their lives, liberty, and 
property, then the South should no longer remain in a Union which thus fails to aceom- 

Elish the objects of its formation, and without which it would be a curse rather than a 
lessinc. And, sir, I say now, to the Senator from Ohio, and all the northern Democracy, 
that, in my opinion, the southern States ought, in the Charleston Convention, to demand 
the plain and unmistakable recognition of these rights of the southern people in the Ter- 
ritories of the United States, as a condition precedent to any party affiliation with the 
northern Democracy; and should the delegates from the free States refuse to recognize 
these rights, then, sir, the southern delegates should no longer hold political association 
with them, but withdraw from the convention and take steps to rally the southern people 
in tne formation of a party at /<<>,>■<■, which should be based upon the simple and sound 
proposition of equality in the Union, or independence out of it." 

If such be the sentiment of the Democratic party in the southern States, I 
hope their delegates will so proclaim on the first day of the convention. I have 
the advantage of the Senator from Georgia; for although my Democratic con- 
stituents have not the power to reelect me, as one of the Senators from Ohio, 
they have elected me to represent them at Charleston. I shall go thither as a 
delegate with their instructions — instructions which coincide with my own sen- 
timents, and which I shall obey to the letter. 

It is immaterial to me, and to the entire Democracy of the Northwest, 
whether the honorable Senator does or does not support the nominees of that 
convention for President and Vice President. We intend to support them; 
unless, indeed, southern fanaticism, carried to the pitch of mere folly, should 
drive us from the convention before any nominations are made. If yon concur 
in our choice for President and Vice President, the candidates will be elected ; 
and all the more triumphantly for the opposition of the Senator from Georgia 
and those who sympathize with him. If yon nominate men who are not ac- 
ceptable to us, but who, in their anxiety to be nominated, or for any other 
cause, have sought all manner of ways, regular and irregular, in season and out 
of season, to profess their devotion toward the strange gods which Mr. 
Buchanan has lately set up to be worshipped, I give you distinct notice that they 
will be defeated as surely as the day of election shall arrive. You will thereby 
convince the people of the non-slaveholding States, one and all, without dis- 
tinction of parties, that no. faith can be reposed in the Democracy of the South, 
and no sacrifice entitle any man to their generosity or admiration. 

I say this not in anger, and certainly not with pleasure. It is impossible for 
me to act with the Republican or the American party : I see nothing in either 
of them to command my confidence. I agree with the Democratic party in 
respect to the rights of the Federal Government, and (especially) the reserved 
rights of the States; in respect to finance; to the currency; to the retrench- 
ment of public expenditures; to a tariff strictly for revenue; to the propriety 
of acquiring Cuba and exercising a decisive control over Mexico, Central Amer- 
ica, and the whole of this continent ; to freedom of conscience, and equality of 
rights as between our native and naturalized citizens; to all that has yet been 
said or done, in general convention, upon the subject of slavery in the States 
and Territories ; the protection of slave property on the high seas, and in the 
public domain where territorial governments have not been organized; together 



32 



with the prompt and faithful rendition of fugitives from service. It remains 
for you, gentlemen of the South, to decide whether hundreds, and thousands, 
and tens of thousands, in the northern and northwestern States, who sympa- 
thize with me, shall be your allies, or be neutral, in November next. 



APPENDIX. 



I am indebted to Hon. George W. Jones, of Tennessee, for two extracts from 
the veto-message written by President Polk, March 3, 1849, in anticipation of 
an attempt to engraft the Wilmot Proviso upon one of the appropriation bills. 
The entire message has never been published; but Mr. Jones informs me that 
he has read it, and, with Mrs. Polk's consent, made these copies. "Both ex- 
tracts," he says, " arc correct and authentic, and are all that is material in that- 
paper." 

The original is indorsed by Mr. Polk's own hand, in these words : 

"March, 1849. — I took this message with me to the Capitol on the night of the 3d of 
March, 1840, intending to return to the House in which it originated, with my objections, 
the Civil and Diplomatic bill to which an amendment, offered by Sir. Walker, of Wiscon- 
sin, had been adopted in the Senate for the government of California, had it been amended 
in the House by ingrafting upon it the Wilnaot proviso. The bill, with the Wilmot proviso 
attached, did not pass, and it was therefore unnecessary to use the message. 

"J. K. P." 

First extract : 

"I cannot, consistently with my opinions and well-settled convictions of duty to the 
Constitution and to the country, sanction, by an approval of this bill, the. provision which 
it contains. My opinions upon this subject were officially expressed in my message to the 
House of Representatives of the 4th of August, last, announcing to that body my appro- 
val and signature of the bill to establish the territorial government of Oregon, and again 
in my last annual message to Congress recommending the establishment of governments 
over the Territories of New Mexico and California acquired by the treaty of peace with 
Mexico. The doctrine of non-intervention with the subject of slavery by the Federal Govern- 
ment, I have never doubted was the true doctrine. The people who inhabit, or may inhabit 
the acquired Territories, have alone the right to. decide for themselves what their domes' it 
institutions shall be, without the irttervepition or interference of Congress. In signing the 
Oregon bill, and in expressing my opinion in my last annual message, I felt constrained to 
yield my original convictions, had t!:is been an open and an original question, and to con- 
form in my action to the compromise established when Missouri was admitted into the 
Union. 1 was thus constrained to yield because the Missouri compromise, in respect to 
slavery, had been recognized and acquiesced in by the slaveholding and mm slaveholding 
States for a period of nearly thirty years; and had not only been acquiesced in, but had 
been distinctly recognized and affirmed without serious opposition in the resolutions passed 
by Congress in February, 1845, for the annexation of Texas as a State of the Union. I 
was unwilling, by my action, to attempt to reverse what seemed to have been so long and 
so well settled." 

The second extract is the conclusion of the message : 

"If neither the non-intervention principle, the Missouri compromise, nor the submission 
of the question of slavery to the judicial tribunals established by the Constitution, recom- 
mended in my last annual message, can meet with favor in Congress, in the establishment 
of territorial government under the authority of that body, the plan which lias been sug- 
gested of admitting the acquired Territories into the Union as states, without the previ- 
ous existence of an intermediate government under the authority of Congress, and leaving 
it to the peoj ' ':■ elves to form their own State constitutions, withoul any attempted 
control over them by Congress, would avoid the embarrassing difficulty in which the 
country is unfortunately placed, by a geographical agitatien of the slave question. ]>y 
adopting this plan, neither the slaveholding nor the non-slaveholding States yield any 
principle. Congress, by this plan, neither attempts to legislate slavery into new Territo- 
ries, nor to exclude it from them. If the inhabitants, in forming their State constitution, 
either permit or exclude the institution, they but exercise the right of self-government, 
Which is inalienable in all the existing States, old and new." 

I regard this testimony of Mr. Polk as conclusive against the doctrine ot 
Congressional Intervention proclaimed in Mr. Buchanan's late message. 

G. E. PUGH. 
"Washington, January 23, 18C0. 



